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With the start of a new school year DoDDS-Bavaria has its number one priority clearly established and focused on reading.  As outlined in the DODEA Community Strategic Plan, the goal and challenge of “ensuring that all children are reading at grade level” has been enthusiastically received by the professional educators across our district.

 Although the task of ensuring that all students are reading at or above grade level is extremely challenging, the goal has been clearly established, as has our task to guarantee that no student is left behind. To this end we have worked diligently to implement a systematic, research based and carefully developed plan to guide us in the successful attainment of this worthy goal.

 During the past school year we solicited and selected a Task Group comprised of elementary school educators whose primary responsibility was to review the research and develop an effective plan that would guide us in the successful attainment of our reading goal.  The carefully developed plan encompassed several critical components.

The first component is the newly selected DODEA Primary Literacy Standards that clearly outline our goals and expectations in the areas of Reading and Writing for all students in grades Kindergarten-3rd.  These new standards not only served to raise the bar and set clearly established expectations for children throughout our system but also provided us with clear outcomes and benchmarks for the children at these grade levels.  Training on the standards was coordinated and continues to be provided to all early childhood educators.  

 With our standards clearly established we began a discussion of how best to identify and/or determine the reading level of children in these early childhood grade levels.  A careful review of the assessment resources led us to the selection of the Developmental Reading Assessment.  The Developmental Reading Assessment is a performance based reading assessment that informs and guides instructional decisions ensuring that all students are placed at and are receiving reading instruction at the appropriate developmental reading level.  Initially the training was provided to all Grade 3 teachers.  Now in our second year of our plan, this same training continues to be made available to all interested teachers in grades K-3 and specialists that service these grade levels in the area of reading and writing.

 Yet another component of our plan included a careful review and analysis of effective reading instructional practices.  Upon identifying the reading levels of each child, our next obvious task was to ensure that all children were receiving reading instruction at the appropriate level of instruction.  Again, a review of the current research aided us in our decision to develop and train teachers in the use of guided reading instruction. Guided Reading is small group reading instruction in which the teacher supports each reader’s development of effective strategies for processing texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty – appropriately matching books to readers.  In an effort to fully implement guided reading, the district has invested thousands of dollars per school to purchase carefully selected leveled libraries so that each student has reading materials at their independent and instructional reading levels available to them.

 Supplemental and support pieces have also been added, increasing the resources that we have available to ensure reading success for all students.  Children learn to read and become more fluent readers through practice.  Our elementary schools are currently exploring and/or implementing such support pieces as Reading Renaissance’s – Accelerated Reader or Scholastic’s Reading Counts.  Both are programs that encourage recreational reading and provide feedback as to the progress and success of each child in their reading practice and development.

 As we begin our second year of our reading initiative a powerful new component has been implemented at 10 of our elementary schools.  This is the position of a Literacy Coach.  The role of the Literacy Coach is to work directly in the classroom with both the classroom teacher and the students to provide and assist with reading instruction, modeling and use of the most effective reading practices.  The Literacy Coaches also assist with the coordination and training of volunteer tutors and parents.

 We continue to review the research to identify yet other components that will best support our goal.  With the start of the current school year we are developing new training modules for phonics instruction and finding ways to regularly monitor, observe and record student reading performance.  And yet another component, presently being developed, is a powerful school-home reading connection.  We are exploring ways to train reading tutors and enhance family and home literacy practices.

 Although the goal is challenging the teachers throughout the Bavaria District are enthusiastically rising to meet the challenge of ensuring reading success for all students.   As we continue to work, implement and improve our district reading plan, we feel that reading success for all is rapidly becoming more than just a vision for the children of the Bavaria District but rather a realistic and attainable goal.