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Show I ".V'. . : f '" Panguitch Elementary 6th grader George Gray meets with DyAnn Westwood who is training on school district's new reading - By Nick Reynolds If you notice an elementary teacher from Garfield County looking tired and a little frazzled it may be because they are experiencing expe-riencing something unusual and a little bit overwhelming. Garfield County's schools currently are in the midst of change. This, in itself, is not ; -; unusual but this change is part -; -; of an unprecedented nationwide ' movement that is literally of epic proportions. It started in ; 1997 when Congress asked the ; ; Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in consul-' consul-' ; ; tation with the Secretary of -; ; - Education, to convene a nation-':''- al panel to access the status of research-based . knowledge, including the effectiveness of various approaches to teaching 1 ; ; children to read. This led to the ; ; , establishment of the National ' Reading Panel. In February - 1999, a progress report was sub- ; - ; mitted to Congress and later, in . December 2000, the "Report of ; the National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read" was ' -" submitted. Since the report was published, a wave of change has ; steadily swept over the study of ; and teaching of reading in the ; nation's schools. In an effort to better teach students, Garfield County's schools have been implementing implement-ing changes in their language arts curriculum. In this, 2004-2005 2004-2005 school year, three major transformations are taking place, all to impact preparation for teaching and classroom instruction. First, the district's entire textbook budget for this textbook. Marilyn Marshall is one of three new literacy coaches hired to implement the district's new program. New Texbooks In Use Countywide Will Enhance K-3 Reading Skills year was spent adopting a new language arts curriculum in the ' elementary schools throughout the county. These textbooks form a necessary and important base, or "basal program" to assist in teaching reading. All elementary teachers throughout the district are currently in the process of learning and teaching from these new textbooks. Second, the district is beginning begin-ning to adopt a new testing program pro-gram to help teachers better understand where each individual individ-ual student is along the continuum continu-um of learning to read. This tremendously important program pro-gram allows teachers to adjust instruction to fit the needs of students. The third important change was the hiring of people in the district to provide for three reading, read-ing, or literacy coaches, in elementary ele-mentary schools. These three literacy lit-eracy coaches have the responsibility respon-sibility to help train other teachers teach-ers in the current and fast-changing fast-changing field of reading instruction, they become, in fact, "staff developers". Funding to create these school-site positions came from Senate Bill 230 enacted during the General Session of the 2004 Utah State Legislature. This bill created a K-3 Reading Improvement Plan for elementary elemen-tary schools in Utah. To receive the money, Garfield County Schools submitted a reading Proficiency Improvement Plan based on its developing language lan-guage arts program. With this funding in hand the decision was made to hire the school-based school-based coaches instead of a dis trict reading administrator. ' The three literacy coaches in Garfield schools are Charlene Ancira located at Bryce Valley Elementary School, Karen Munson at Escalante Elementary School, and Marilyn Marshall at Panguitch Elementary School. Already this year Charlene and Marilyn have (See READ on page 5A) Reading From Front Page received training in DIBELS, a progress monitoring testing program pro-gram for reading, and Karen recently received training as a reading coach from the statewide Reading First program. pro-gram. These exciting changes are happening now, and with the reading landscape still dramatically dramati-cally changing, more is yet to come. Yet, with all this, one thing still hasn't changed. Children need to read at home, read with their parents, read often and read a lot. |