Basic Skills Forum

Effective Practices by Debbie Macias

Basic Skills as a Foundation for Student Success

Part 1: Review of Literature and Effective Practices.

The importance of having specified goals and objectives for best practice is very important for a successful program. In order for an effective practice, the program must have a mission plan. The clear cut goals of a successful program can be the manner in which we can track our students with benchmarks. The students must have an educational plan in place at the onset of the basic skills program. The student should have an orientation before being assessed by their counselor. The graduating ESL students could be oriented as to this option after completion of ESL and the basic skills program. If the assessment procedures are presumed to be accurate indicators of a student’s actual level of preparation and to their actual basic skills competence, it is logical to infer that our students will be best served by completing these basic skills courses prior to enrolling into other credit courses such as high school subjects. The students who came into the basic skills program can be assessed from the onset of the program. This article states how research overwhelmingly supports the notion that early assessment and the completion of coursework improves student achievement.