A Letter from the Officers and Board of the Fundamental Learning Center:
2011 – 2nd Year Report of the Downing Literacy Project
Can it get better than this? Results from the Downing Literacy Project are “hot off the press”…they are once again phenomenal!
The 2010/2011 Project focused all training efforts on identification and intervention of reading problems with our youngest readers, kindergarten and first graders. 41 new public school teachers received 200 hours of literacy education at Fundamental Learning Center during the summer of 2010. Each teacher returned to his/her elementary school and chose a group of four Kdg. or 1st grade children. This year’s Project plan provided 101 Kindergarten students and 105 first graders highly specialized literacy intervention services an hour per day, five days per week, during the school year. Data collected over the course of the year investigated four critical areas of early literacy development: Letter Naming Fluency, Letter Sound Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency. Development of these key skills during the Kindergarten and first grade years remains the best predictors of future reading success.
How did the 2010/2011 children do?
Over the course of the study, the kindergarten children averaged 39 point gains in comparison to the national average of 31 point gains. The first graders saw 38 point gains compared to national gains of 20 points. By the end of the year’s study, children in the pilot made larger gains in most early literacy categories than the typical child represented in the national mean.
The Project results are “outstanding” in light of the stagnant or declining national literacy scores, despite years of attention and billions of dollars to improve the trend. More than 178,000 fourth-graders participated in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading. “For grade 4, the average reading score in 2009 was unchanged from the score in 2007… Only one-third (33 percent) performed at or above Proficient”. Eighth graders fared no better. Kansas is no exception. (For more information, visit our website www.funlearn.org,)
This Project tracked the children’s progress with a nationally recognized monitoring system used in many school districts across Kansas (AIMSweb.) Children were chosen for our pilot study scoring in the lowest 20%. Many of the children in the Project attended low achieving schools, most growing up in poverty. These children were compared toall children reflected in the national scores. At the beginning of the pilot study, the children chosen to participate were considered most likely to fail to learn to read and instead they covered more ground in literacy success than the average child nationally. These dramatic improvements in their lives were achieved, thanks to the Downing Foundation and you.
We started with the question “Can it get better than this?”… We think so.
A Neighborhood Literacy Initiative: The Downing Literacy Project closely studied the development of language and literacy skills of children living in poverty, attending an urban school district, to see if Fundamental Learning Center instructional methods could make a difference in children’s literacy success. Our credible outcomes have spurred questions and interest.
Question: “Can we repeat these successes?”
Answer: Yes, right in our own neighborhood.
The Downing Foundation is providing scholarships to children who qualify for the free or reduced school program, and live in the Wichita and surrounding communities. The goal is to build a Neighborhood Literacy Initiative, to serve the literacy needs for children right here at FLC. This summer and continuing into the fall school year, we are focusing our expertise on teaching children to read, write and spell, ages 6 to 18 years.
Question: “Can we repeat our successful literacy model across the state?”
Answer: Yes, we continue offering FLC’s training model to school districts across the state of Kansas. This furthers our mission of establishing highly qualified literacy specialists for children who struggle to learn to read. Teacher specialize. Children make gains.
Again we are forever grateful for your help as we continue to make a difference in the lives of children and educators. We could not have seen these accomplishments or touched these lives without your help. We thank you. Together we are helping: “All Kids Reading…All Kids Succeeding!”
Jeanine Phillips, Executive Director
Year Two ~ Results after the second benchmark….
The 2010-2011 school year is off and running, and again, the partnership with USD 259 and the Downing Foundation is proving to be a successful one. During the summer of 2010, we trained another 40 teachers in our Literacy Invention Specialist program in two waves: Wave IV in June and Wave V in August. However, this year, we were asked to work with those students in Kindergarten and First grade. Again, AIMSweb was used as the measurement tool. Be sure to check out the graphs…They speak loudly!
Downing Literacy Project~Year One
Beginning of the Project – children were divided into five groups related to the waves of training received by their literacy project teachers:
1) Wave I: 35 children taught in a variety of school settings
2) Wave II: 40 children taught in a variety of school settings
3) Wave III: 26 children taught in a variety of school settings
4) A specialized small group (1:4) environment was constructed for 51 students (K-3rd) at GPA who participated in the pilot project to serve as a control group.
5) 42 Control Group (CG) children who did not receive the study’s intervention program.
Total Children: 194 entered program
Each child, grades K-3, was benchmarked with a set of early literacy indicators to assess phonemic awareness and phonics. These assessments include fluency measures that include beginning sounds, letter names, letter sounds, phoneme segmentation, and nonsense word reading, all foundational skills children must develop through instruction and practice to emerge as readers.
Children in the Downing Literacy Project, Waves 1-3 and the two control groups, were assessed four times using the AIMSweb formative assessment and basic skills improvement system by their group instructor. At the four scheduled dates, the students (1st – 3rd) were also assessed on the R-CBM (Reading Curriculum Benchmark Monitor) on grade level. The scores were entered on the teacher’s AIMSweb account.
Summer_2012_1-pg_flyer.pdf
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