WIN and WIN Jr

Purpose of the WIN Period:

The WIN period, short for “What I Need,” is a dedicated academic learning time designed to meet students’ specific academic needs based on diagnostic assessments and screeners administered at the beginning of the year. WIN allows for targeted support, whether through intervention or enrichment, based on students’ performance in literacy and other key areas. The goal is to ensure each student receives the exact instruction they need to grow, whether that means additional support or advanced learning opportunities. This practice is primarily for grades 4 and 5, but WIN Jr, serves grades K – 3.

Student Assessment and Placement:

At the start of the school year, all students participate in assessments such as i-Ready and Acadience. These assessments are used to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in reading skills, including phonics, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary. For example, a low score in phonics on Acadience could indicate the need for focused phonics support. Based on these scores, students are grouped according to their needs and assigned to specific intervention programs within the WIN period. Benchmarks and specific criteria for each program vary, but typically a score below grade-level expectations signals the need for targeted intervention.

SPIRE:

SPIRE (Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence) is a multi-sensory, structured reading intervention designed for students who need significant support in phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency. It follows the Orton-Gillingham approach, which is systematic, explicit, and highly structured. SPIRE is often used with students who show low scores in phonemic awareness and decoding, as identified by assessments like Acadience.

Sound Sensible:

The Sound Sensible program is a structured, explicit, and multisensory reading intervention designed for beginning or struggling readers (typically PreK-2 or older students with foundational skill deficits). It serves as a foundational level, often called Pre-Level 1, for the more comprehensive S.P.I.R.E. (Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence) curriculum. The intervention is based on Orton-Gillingham principles and focuses on developing phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, letter-sound relationships (phonics), and handwriting. The program is intensive, typically mastering 20 consonants and the short vowel

Phonics for Reading:

Phonics for Reading is a phonics-based intervention that systematically builds decoding skills for students who need additional support in this area. This program is well-suited for students who need explicit phonics instruction to improve reading accuracy and fluency. Students are typically placed in Phonics for Reading if they score in the “below expectations” range on phonics-specific assessments, indicating they need targeted phonics instruction.

Data Benchmarks and Placement:

Student placement in interventions is based on benchmark scores from assessments. For example, in I-Ready, a score in the “Tier 2” or “Tier 3” range suggests a need for intervention, while Acadience benchmarks may show specific skill deficits in areas like phoneme segmentation or nonsense word fluency. Regular progress monitoring is essential, with teachers reassessing students to ensure they’re placed in the correct intervention group or to transition them to a different level if they demonstrate progress.

While some students need intervention, others may be working at or above grade level. For these students, the WIN period provides enrichment opportunities that extend their learning and deepen their engagement with literacy.

Article of the Day:

This enrichment activity involves students reading and discussing a short article each day. It promotes reading comprehension, critical thinking, and vocabulary building. The articles are typically on high-interest or current event topics, which engages students and helps them practice reading strategies in a meaningful context. For students who meet or exceed benchmark expectations, “Article of the Day” provides an enriching experience that pushes them beyond basic comprehension.

Student-Guided Practices and Research

For independent exploration and skill-building, SeeSaw offers a platform where students can engage in self-guided practice, creative projects, or research assignments. This digital tool allows students to research topics of personal interest, present their findings, and share their work with teachers and classmates. By using SeeSaw, students develop digital literacy, research skills, and a deeper engagement with their interests.

Music Creation

Music creation acts as an excellent enrichment activity for 5th graders by providing a direct, hands-on path to complex problem-solving and higher-order thinking. It supports critical thinking by demanding analysis of musical elements (e.g., rhythm, melody, harmony) as students must first understand the "rules" and structures to effectively manipulate them. The process of composition itself is a continuous loop of evaluation and revision, where students must assess their own musical ideas, identify dissonance or imbalance, and apply systematic creative problem-solving to refine their work until it matches their expressive intent. Furthermore, music creation fosters metacognition because students must reflect on the impact of their choices, justifying why a certain tempo or instrumentation works best to communicate a specific feeling or idea.

Choir

Choir is an excellent enrichment activity that provides a real-time, cooperative challenge for students in grades 4 and 5, extending beyond basic musical knowledge. It supports critical thinking by demanding high levels of auditory analysis and coordination. Students must actively listen to multiple melodic lines and harmonic parts simultaneously, distinguishing their own part from the group's overall sound (a complex auditory task). This process fosters problem-solving as choristers must quickly self-correct and adjust their pitch, rhythm, and volume to blend with their section and the ensemble. Furthermore, performing as a unified group requires students to develop executive function skills like focus, discipline, and temporal awareness, as they must maintain their concentration and coordinate their actions precisely with the conductor and their peers, transforming individual actions into a coherent, planned whole.

Debate

Debate serves as an exceptional enrichment activity for 5th graders by transforming critical thinking into an engaging, real-world exercise. It directly supports a variety of crucial skills, starting with analysis and research, as students must thoroughly investigate a topic to understand multiple perspectives. Debate sharpens evaluation skills by requiring students to distinguish between strong and weak evidence, logically structure arguments, and anticipate counter-arguments. Furthermore, it fosters communication and persuasive reasoning, demanding that students articulate their ideas clearly and coherently while listening actively to respond effectively to opponents, ultimately preparing them for more complex academic and civic engagement.

STEAM Lab

The lab supports critical thinking by demanding application and synthesis—students don't just memorize facts, but use them to build, design, and create. This process fosters design thinking as students must define a problem (e.g., build a structure to withstand a small earthquake), ideate potential solutions, create a prototype, and then test and evaluate their own work. This iterative cycle of design, failure, and revision strengthens logical reasoning and adaptability, teaching them that mistakes are necessary steps toward a successful outcome. The inclusion of Art ensures the focus extends beyond pure functionality to include aesthetic design and creative expression, making the thinking process more holistic and engaging.