HUGE Growth!

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HUGE Growth!

  • June 25, 2025
  • Posted by: Caitlin McCallum
  • Category: Wow Story
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~ written by Maddison Trussell, LSEM teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Fort Worth, TX ~

I have seen great wonders this school year, but last week was an amazing feeling that made my heart race in joy and gave me that “jaw-dropping” moment you see in movies.

My school does MAP testing at the beginning and end of the school year. I have three sixth graders that I have serviced throughout the school year. We’ve worked on almost everything you can think of from text evidence, citations, annotations, etc. Their beginning of the year scores gave me a baseline for what they know and what they can work on.

Last week, they took their reading MAP test for the end of the year and I was so anxious to get their results back to compare from the beginning to now. I have one student who showed a year of growth (for background, he has limited English), another student showed over two years of growth, and my last one showing almost two years.

I was hoping for some growth but talk about a WOW! I thanked God for equipping me with the tools and strategies needed to educate these kiddos. I had some worry about ensuring that my kids would be successful, especially being in a new role like this, but God validated to me that I was where I belong and that what I was doing was working.