Reading
Reading Coordinator: Ronda Davis - I have been teaching for 12 years, but this is my second year at BEAM. I have a BA from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina and a Masters from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee. My licenses include general education, speech communication, reading teacher, and reading specialist. My favorite education quote is, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body," by Joseph Addison. Outside of BEAM, I enjoy spending time with my husband and two sons and reading.
Reading Response to Intervention Specialist: Lois Nugent
The Success For All Reading Curriculum has been selected as the general reading curriculum for grades K-4 through 6th. The Success For All program, known as SFA, is a research-based curriculum consisting of the following components:
The Success for All Foundation's preschool program, Curiosity Corner, is designed to prepare students for success in school by engaing four-year-olds in literacy-focused, problem-solving activities. The program includes detailed instruction and provides many of the materials necessary for implementing a stimulating, engaging program, as well as training and support for educators implementing the program. One key to Curiosity Corner's success is the in-depth professional development provided to support teachers' implementation of the thematic units.
The K-5 component, KinderCorner, fosters the development of children's language, literacy, math, interpersonal and self-help skills, science, and social studies concepts. The focus on strong oral language skills, a love of reading, phonemic awareness, phonics, and listening comprehension creates a solid foundation for reading.
Reading Roots is a 90-minute comprehensive program that targets the needs of beginning readers. Reading Roots is a research-based beginning reading program that has proven its effectiveness in randomized experimental research. It provides a strong base for successful reading by providing systematic phonics instruction supported by decodable stories, as well as instruction in fluency and comprehension. Reading Roots also fosters students' love of reading by providing rich literature experience, extensive oral language development, and thematically-focused writing instruction. Students are assessed and regrouped according to their reading level quarterly to ensure they are receiving the most focused instruction.
Students in grades 2-6 who have successfully learned to decode need more sophisticated reading skills to become proficient readers. These stills include vocabulary development, reading comprehension, fluency, oral language development, and written expression. Students also need ample opportunities to read both narrative and expository text. Reading Wings teaches students comprehension strategies, such as summarization, clarification, graphic organizers, story structure, and prediction, so that students can become confident, strategic readers. As in Reading Roots, students are assessed and regrouped according to their reading level on a quarterly basis to ensure they are receiving the most focused instruction.
In addition to the universal reading curriculum, BEAM provides students who are struggling readers with supplemental and targeted instruction.
The Wilson Reading System (WRS) is used with students in grades 4 through 8 who are reading two or more years below grade level. WRS directly teaches the structure of words in the English language so that students master the coding system for reading and spelling. Unlike other programs that overwhelm the student with rules, the language system of English is presented in a systematic and cumulative manner so that it is manageable. It provides an organized, sequential system with extensive controlled text to help teachers implement a multisensory structured language program. The basis purpose of the Wilson Reading System is to teach students fluent decoding and encoding skills to the lever of mastery. From the beginning steps of the program, it also includes sight word instruction, fluency, vocabulary, oral expressive language development and comprehension activities every day in small groups.
Students in K-5 through grade 2 who are experiencing difficulty in reading receive targeted instruction from the Wilson Fundations Program. Wilson Fundations for K-3 is a phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling program. Fundations is based upon the Wilson Reading System principles and serves as a prevention program to help reduce reading and spelling failure.
The Literacy Committee is currently selecting a new curriculum for use in grades 6 through 8.