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View Ridge Elementary Summary

View Ridge Elementary has a large population of students receiving free or reduced lunch. Five years ago, the school district mandated that all schools implement Readwell K and K and Open Court as the core reading programs. These programs were chosen in part because of their strong phonemic awareness component.

Students at View Ridge receive 90 – 120 minutes of reading instruction each day. During this reading block students participate in a program called “Walk to Read” which groups students according to ability. Students literally walk to their appropriately-leveled reading groups. These groups are flexible with students entering and leaving based on assessed progress or lack thereof. Group sizes also vary. Higher level groups with students at or above benchmark have the most students while lower level groups have the least students. The last half hour of “Walk to Read” is used for differentiated instruction. At this time, students in the lower level reading groups may receive targeted, small group instruction, either in-class or pulled out. This instruction is provided by reading teachers or paraprofessionals depending on what is being taught.

Students who need more reading instruction than the minimum 90 – 120 minutes daily “Walk to Read” are grouped into tiers based on weekly assessments. Tier I & Tier II students receive 30 minutes of additional instruction daily while Tier III students receive up to an additional 60 minutes each day. This instruction may include fluency practice such as Read Naturally, re-teaching, and/or pre-teaching as well as instruction from supplemental programs such as Fundations or the Wilson Reading System. Fundations is a Wilson program targeted to younger students and can be implemented as either a core or supplemental reading curriculum. At View Ridge, Fundations is a supplemental program used primarily with intervention students in K-2. View Ridge students in K – 5 who need more in-depth instruction are taught from the Wilson Reading System which is designed for students of all ages.

The consensus of the teachers and principal is that the earlier intervention begins, the more effective and dramatic it is. Based on their data, kindergarten is a particularly advantageous time to intervene.

At View Ridge, weekly and tri-annual DIBELS assessments are tracked on a comprehensive, color- coded spreadsheet. Communication surrounding this data amongst reading specialists and general education teachers is crucial to the success of the program. Also important to successful implementation is training in Fundations and Wilson Reading System for as many teachers as possible. Basic training in Wilson helps general education teachers coach their students to use “tools from their toolbox” such as finger tapping and blending to decode words. This helps to bridge the gap between the general education classroom and intervention instruction.

Lastly, the principal of View Ridge feels the most important piece of implementing an effective reading program is leadership. She said, “being supportive is one thing, doing it is another.”


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