Progress

We just wrapped our sixth week serving our first full-year district schools, and our fourth week serving our first full-year charter schools. We have only one job: help the most struggling readers, including those with characteristics of dyslexia, learn to read. Are we making progress?

 It looks like it, from our data on students who have been in the program for six weeks. More than half of our second grade students have mastered consonant sounds, and a third have mastered “consonant, vowel, consonant” (CVC) words with “a” and “i.” The rest are making significant progress. Our first graders are working on rhyming and phonemic awareness, letter sounds, and just getting going on blending CVC words.

 It seems like it, in terms of the learning environment, routines, and time on task. I was out visiting schools this week, and saw focused and productive learning spaces, with literacy work ranging from detecting rhymes to consonant blends. We are in regular contact with instructional assistants, special education coordinators, curriculum leaders, and principals to be sure that every child is cared for.

And it feels like it, in terms of the relationships our students are building with their teachers. We make sure they know we’re glad to be working with them, even when they’re having a rough or unsettled day. And they’re feeling the growth – as one boy said when his class got cut a bit short, “That’s ok, at least I’m getting smarter.”

What is the face of a struggling reader? For me it’s a first grade girl, so sweet, struggling to produce rhymes and still mixing up her consonant sounds. It’s a second grader, reading CVC “a” words, reading “fat” as “fish” before getting the coaching to pause, break up the sounds, and put them together. And it’s repetition – a hundred times through letters and words when a skilled reader might take only five or ten.

With our help, these kids are building their own reading futures. I wish you could see it – the joy of reading a new word or passage, the new-found confidence with words that didn’t make sense before. Most of all I wish you could celebrate with us – the “Letter Captain” and “Sound-it-out Commander” awards, the virtual high-fives, the classroom cheer.

Thanks for believing and for following along. Progress!