Carolyn Hartwigsen

In this article I would like to highlight some of the strategies we are using to accomplish this worthy goal. We are embracing this challenge by housing a KinderPrep pre-school for “at-risk” 3 -5 year olds in the Westwood area and offering tuition free full day kindergarten for “at-risk” 5 year olds (district wide). In addition, we provide afterschool targeted tutoring through our RAMS program. We have three Minnesota Reading Corps members working with kindergarten – grade three, an ADSIS reading teacher, and we partner struggling readers with adults from our community once a week. We are guided by formal benchmarking three times a year, followed by interventions for remediation or enrichment. Increased parent involvement is a necessity.

Parent Involvement and educating families on the What? Why? and How? is our key focus in getting all kids on track for reading at grade level. Last December we hosted our first annual Family Night, ALL ABOARD FOR READING SUCCESS, Is Your Child on Track? and invited all families of first, second, and third graders who were in the “at-risk” category after the fall benchmarking. The response was so positive that this year we just completed the second annual meeting in October. The focus of our presentation was to demonstrate and show them what assessments we use, why we look at these to determine the specific intervention to remediate the deficit skill, and how they can support us at home through many useful strategies and suggestions.

Reading a grade level: One of the most powerful components of our night was to actually have a child read at grade level from each of the four levels, Kindergarten – grade 3. This was prepared last spring by recording an “average” child for one minute, so families know what the grade level expectation sounds like. Families were amazed by the rapid progression for reading fluency. We also showed them a sample MCAII test with the rigor in the areas of vocabulary, comprehension, and making inferences.

We are proud to report that 75% of those invited attended the event. Since many of our invited families are our most at-risk, we knew that providing a light supper and daycare would encourage them to attend. Another factor that contributed to the high attendance was personal phone calls and reminders made by me and other staff members. At the end of the evening every family left with a new book at their child’s reading level.

Comments from the evening: “Please do this every year for every grade and earlier.” “I will make more time to read with my children by making it comfortable with warm feelings while we are doing this.” “I now know how to find the right book and how to ask questions.” “This meeting was great. Thank you for your time and help.”

Together we are teaching children to be good readers and make the grade level goals. We know ongoing coaching is essential, so we are planning frequent parent nights to support staying on track, with informal group discussions on tips for: building comprehension by asking higher level questions, re-telling, finding “just right books,” games, paired reading, and other fun strategies. All of our Accelerated Book titles are on our Web site and students take many quizzes all year. Excitement is in the air when we have our monthly drawings for a chance drawing to pick out a new book, stickers, pencils and bookmarks!

Parent events will include inviting families to bring their children for a fun get together, modeling some good reading strategies, and sending home “just right books” and books on iPods in traveling backpacks. Some of the parent ideas included: having a book club for parents and children to read and share ideas, and exchange books; having theme nights for high interest topics relating to classroom or seasonal times like a fall harvest celebration; holding a Read-a-thon for Dr. Seuss Birthday; or snuggling up in igloos on a cold night. The ideas are endless: build it and they will come! The key is getting families excited about reading and great things will happen.

As a closing note, this is starting my fifth year as principal at Westwood and like most Minnesota schools the demographic has changed. In 2006 the Free/Reduced count was 23% compared to 35% today. Our LEP has grown from 5% to 14%. We have worked in partnership with the “We Believe Alliance” to bridge the resources between our community and our school. The “We Believe Alliance” is a non-profit organization with a mission to unite the Bloomington Community and its schools to help close the disparity and achievement gaps.