Program helps build reading skills

QUARTZ HILL — Approximately 400 students across the Westside Union School District are participating in an after-school reading program that focuses on foundational reading skills for struggling readers in kindergarten through third grade, with early data showing positive results.

Class size is limited to 15 or fewer students. The classes meet for 45 minutes after school, four days per week, for an eight-week cycle each quarter.

Teachers are using Journeys Decoding Power to deliver systematic explicit instruction and NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) skills assessments to monitor progress and growth, according to the District.

Ninety-percent of students in Session 1 of the WUSD Extended Learning Day Reading Program improved their reading skills. Eighty-six percent of students in the program increased their District Benchmark NWEA Reading test scores, the District said.

Session 2 begins, today, with new and returning students to continue building reading skills in kindergarten through third grade students throughout the District.

Westside’s Board of Education approved a Memorandum of Understanding, last October,

with the Westside Union Teachers Association, for the Extended Day Reading Intervention Program.

Teachers must have completed or be concurrently enrolled in the OERA (Online Elementary Reading Academy) in order to teach in the program, according to the District.

Nearly 100 teachers, all school site administrators and every educational

services director, has completed or is currently completing the OERA, which is hosted by the Consortium on Reading Excellence in Education. The course consists of seven asynchronous modules with each module taking approximately four to six hours to complete.

“I’m excited about the progress of students in the Extended Day

Learning program,” Darrell Hrabik, a third grade teacher at Rancho Vista Elementary School said. “The improvement is shown with the growth of their winter NWEA test scores. We are a team working together to get these students to become successful in reading and all other subjects. The EDL

program has helped these students. I look forward to students continuing to grow during the spring session.”

Lauren Gutierrez, a second grade teacher at Rancho Vista, also praised the program.

“As far as the students in my Extended Learning program go, I have had teachers tell me that their parents are making comments about their increased levels of reading, how they’re performing better on class tests and how they are gaining confidence, as well,” she said.

Rozanne Galaviz, a second grade teacher at Esperanza Elementary School, said confidence and self-esteem are growing in the students, daily.

Janel Mears, a kindergarten teacher at Del Sur School, said she is super happy to report that she’s seeing progress being made with the students she’s working with in the extended day class.

“Students often ask if they have ‘Reading Club’ after school and when I answer ‘yes,’ they get excited,” she said. “Even more valuable than the score increases I am seeing, is the confidence and excitement in learning to read and their willingness to try in the small group setting. It makes my heart happy to see.”