By JIM MAGDEFRAU
Star Press Union editor
VAN HORNE – “We’re very lucky to be piloting this program this year. We’re one of only three or four school districts in the state that have the opportunity to go through this.”
Benton Community Keystone/Van Horne Elementary Principal Ryan Junge led off a presentation on a new literacy project taking place at Benton.
The presentation with local staff and Deanna Thursby of Grant Wood Area Education Agency was given at the Benton school board meeting Jan. 18 in Van Horne.
Junge said this is a mastery level reading method program for the staff. “Our staff has been fantastic,” Junge added about the pilot projects they have been working.
“We are extremely lucky and fortunate to be utilizing these resources,” Junge said.
Thursby said she has many different roles at Benton, the last two focusing on reading and working with teachers and students, especially students that have special learning needs when it comes to reading.
She and staff are working to eliminate the achievement gap in reading. Most students they work with have difficulty reading, creating a gap between where they are reading now, and where their classmates are reading.
“Our goal is to accelerate their reading so that we can eliminate that gap and we can bring their performance closer to where they should be with their peers,” Thursby said.
The guiding principles include the belief that students with persistent reading problems need intense, targeted reading instruction daily, which is true for students in all grade levels.
The first step, she said, was realizing in spite of how hard they are working, they can do better. They weren’t closing that “gap” as quickly as they wanted, so the school needed to look at other tools to do that. This takes support from administrators and the AEA. Training also took place for all special education and reading specialists. There was also a commitment by the district to invest dollars for materials and resources that are “very targeted and intense.”
Program began this fall
Last year, the school district approached the AEA about starting the program and becoming a pilot school. An agreement was finalized in May 2010, and training dates were set.
This summer they met with the Department of Education to set up a five-year action plan. Four pilot groups were developed, starting with “corrective reading” in August. Special education and reading specialists started their training that month. These teachers will then teach their peers.
The programs goals are:
• Improve reading and written language performance for students with disabilities.
• Increase the instructional and diagnostic skills of teachers, especially those who support students with disabilities in the area of literacy.
• Increase the ability of teachers to match and implement instruction for students with disabilities, matched to student needs, monitor progress, and alter variables as needed.
Students were assessed in August with targeted reading diagnostic tools. Instructional tools were formed based on that data. Then Benton met with the AEA and Department of Education to decide which tools would best fit the school’s needs.
The staff started with reading instruction with students in small groups or one-on-one from 30 to 45 minutes a day. Staff then met as a team once a week as a collaborative team, and monitored progress to see of changes in instruction were needed.
Corrective reading
One tool is corrective reading. This deals with students with phonics and decoding problems, or how the words sound.
They have problems with long words, they read haltingly, confuse words and have problems with multi-syllable words. Thursby said this is an intense, scripted and sequenced program.
There are different levels. They are starting with a second grader, but it can be used all the way up to high school.
It begins with basic sounds and vowels, what they sound like and what the letter looks like in print. Each level gets more sophisticated, as students work to break down long words.
Students work on word attack skills, group reading out loud, fluency assessments (how smoothly and quickly a student is reading), vocabulary and comprehension.
“It’s a pretty intense lesson and it clicks right along at about 45 minutes,” Thursby said.
Read to Achieve
“Read to Achieve” is a comprehension set of materials. Students know how to sound words out, but they need to be taught how to use information once it is read.
“Once I figure out the words, what do I do with them?” Thursby said of the program.
Really Great Reading
Another program is “Really Great Reading,” which is a decoding program using manipulative, hands-on instruction.
FLRT
Another technology tool is Fluent Reading Technology Tool (FLRT), which is a technology program. This is for a student who can sound out words, but needs to work to read a little more quickly, or more fluently.
She stressed about the mastery program, “We do not go on until the student gets it right.”
Results
Using a decoding survey, students showed growth in reading skills from fall to winter. There was also growth in reading skills.
Every two weeks there is a grade level probe, or seeing at what grade level a student is reading. They also work to get students to read words more quickly.
Next year, the school plans to have all special education teachers and reading specialists using these tools.
Staff speaks
The staff pointed out quotes from students, with one high school student stating, “I can tell that this reading class is helping. I can read more words in all my other classes.”
Young students who were not confident about their reading now want to read. They also like having repetition built into the program, with students needing 20 times the amount of repetition than a reader that is not struggling.
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