Tana Piersall, principal of Etna Elementary School from Scott Valley Unified School District, shares how the statewide Lead to Literacy grant and two years of partnering with CTI have provided students with research-based instruction that is drastically improving reading scores and confidence in the classroom.
As engaged participants in the statewide Lead to Literacy and Get Reading Right literacy initiatives, Scott Valley Unified is making a concerted effort to provide our students with research-based, scientifically proven instructional strategies and resources to improve reading scores. To equip our teachers with best practices in reading instruction, we have worked with Jodi and the Chartwell team for the past two school years to provide teacher training.
Jodi provided two days of on-site coaching last spring for our middle school teachers at Scott Valley Junior High School. They focused on subject-specific vocabulary in our math and science courses and were presented with strategies to use the Greek and Latin roots to improve comprehension and connections for students. Our English and social studies teachers were able to map out a unit plan to implement Vocabulary from Classical Roots as a supplemental curriculum to our core class instruction. As a result of this training, our district is now using Vocabulary from Classical Roots in all English classes in grades 6-12.
As a district, we are addressing the literacy gap by returning to a phonics and phonemic awareness-based reading instruction program in first and second grades and concentrating on intervention for students in third through fifth grade who lack proficiency in reading fluency and comprehension. Based on recommended strategies from our work with Jodi, the middle school is using Megawords combined with Six-minute Solution in our enrichment/intervention classes to increase fluency and comprehension. We observed significant growth in students’ scores last year when this model was piloted with our 7th-grade group. Many of our naive readers grew in their self-assurance and began volunteering to read aloud in the presence of their peers!
We are confident students will continue to improve this school year as our teachers continue to refine the instructional practices identified by Jodi in conjunction with the above mentioned supplemental resources.
