The Each Child Reads Grant helps elevate literacy skills for students at Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools

By Mimi Vanderhaven

Early literacy skills have become a hot topic in the realm of education, and luckily for students in Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools, tapping into grants and national support programs is raising the bar.

“The Each Child Reads Grant is a two-year competitive grant that we applied for through the Ohio Department of Education,” says Gina Kevern, who is director of communications and community engagement for the district. “We are one of only 12 districts in the state to be awarded this grant, which was written specifically for the Willoughby-Eastlake Preschool and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School. In addition to improving teacher instructional skills and student literacy outcomes, the purpose of the grant is for the two schools to serve as model schools in the district and the state based on the implementation and results.”

According to Christy Brock, who is a first-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson, the efforts are producing results.

“This grant has enhanced my literacy instruction because I have a structured systematic Language Arts block where I am explicitly teaching the five components of reading with fidelity,” she says. “All of the skills necessary for learning to read are being taught and I am seeing so much success. My class loves reading and when looking at the data, I have seen an increase in student growth.”

Preschoolers get a positive early start through instructional materials and strategies geared to ensure they successfully transition to kindergarten with the needed early literacy skills to become successful readers.

And to address struggling and at-risk readers, a new platform called Acadience Screener K-6 has been introduced to help educators collect data about each student’s literacy skills.

“Based on that data, they can adjust instruction and provide intervention for struggling readers,” K-5 Literacy Coach, Amanda Steward adds. “Acadience also serves as a screener to identify students at risk for reading difficulties such as dyslexia, but that is not the sole purpose. It is a universal screener that assesses student progress for all students at all reading levels and enables teachers to monitor their growth over time.”

Look for these monthly stories to cover topics from grades K-12 in the Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools System. Find out more at WESchools.org.