By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The science of reading is not a buzzword at Riley Elementary School in Great Bend. It's a culture. At last Thursday's USD 428 Board of Education luncheon at the school, Principal Beth Rein outlined to the board how teachers are going above and beyond to get through to students. It's not a process where results are seen overnight.
"Our challenge is staying motivated when we have data showing that our kids are learning, yet we don't always meet those absolute targets the state sets, that MTSS sets with 80 percent," she said. "We don't always hit those day-in and day-out, but we do have really slow, small progress and all kids are learning."
All classroom teachers at the school, and some supporting staff, participate in extra training like Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), a 2-year commitment the teachers are doing outside of their classroom time. Seven kindergartners at the school read at grade level and 25 are on targeted intervention to improve skills. In first grade, eight students are at grade level with 28 on intervention. By sixth grade, just eight are on targeted intervention and 28 are reading at grade level.
"Interventions have almost become - I feel like we're going to the doctor's office and we're writing reading prescriptions," Rein said. "It's really pretty magical how we're getting them."
Riley Elementary has 18 English Language-endorsed teachers who work with students where English is not their primary language. Kelsey Scheuerman and Traci Miller work solely with EL students and, over the next two weeks, will be administering the Kansas English Language Proficiency Assessment to 135 students.