Over $6 million to help DE educators build literacy in classrooms
Salisbury, Md. – More than 8 million DOLLARS are going towards strengthening reading in Delaware classrooms. On March 12, the Delaware Department of Education announced a $1.9 million investment in the State Implementation Fund grant from nonprofit, Accelerate, and a $6.1 million investment into Bridge to Practice grants awarded to 25 districts and charter schools across the state.
The Bridge to Practice grants support districts and charter schools in strengthening literacy grounded in the science. Administrators say the grants will go towards strengthening educator capacity.
One of the districts receiving grant funds is the Indian River School District, which was awarded over $200,000. Indian River School District Elementary ML and ELA Literacy Specialist Marisa Hockman said the funds will empower the work already being undertaken by educators to boost literacy and engage students in reading in scientifically-backed ways.
“I’m just so proud of our teachers and the work that they’re doing, because this does represent a big shift from where we were, from where the nation was in terms of what literacy instruction looked like,” she said. “I’m so proud of the work that they’ve put in and how excited they are, because we’re all starting to see the changes in our students. And that’s exactly why we’re all here.”
The awards from the Bridge to Practice grants prioritize increasing the “skillful use of skillful use of high-quality instructional materials,” student-centered coaching for teachers and “innovative staffing models that increase instructional support for students,” among others. Delaware DOE officials said in a statement these strategies “are central to the Delaware’s Early Literacy and the Strategic plans’ focus on strengthening Tier I instruction and building educator capacity statewide.”
Kelly Dorman, Director of Elementary Education Kelly Dorman said the implementation of the science of reading began about three years ago when the school district began looking for a new reading curriculum that aligned with a more structured literary approach. She said embedding the science of reading has a lot to do with the systematic intuition around phonetics.
Dorman and Hockman both helped co-author the grant for their school and are thrilled with the results.
“We’re in our third year of implementing CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts) and so this grant come comes at a perfect time,” Dorman said.
Dorman said the district has three different types of learning activities built in to the grant. One of them is an opportunity for teachers to further their understanding of embedding the science of reading into their reading program.
Hockman is currently leading training with teachers in Pre-K through third grade.
“It’s amazing to see,” Dorman said. “The other learning opportunity that we built into the grant was, what we call ELLA, but it’s Early Literacy Leadership Academy, and it’s for school teams to participate.”
The school district, according to Dorman, will have small school-based teams that will then turn key professional learning back in their buildings around strategies that support early literacy.
“And then our third is that we had put into the grant an opportunity for at least 40 educators to engage in AIMS training,” she said. “And we were excited because this is a lot of work outside of their school day, which they’ll be compensated for.”
AIM Institute for Learning and Research provides a course for teachers so that they can align with Pathways to Proficient Reading courses.
“But teachers were excited for this opportunity,” Dorman said. “I mean, the list, we had only 40 applicants that could apply. It filled up very quickly, and we now have a wait list for teachers to engage.”
Dorman said the progress is slow, but steady.
“We’re only in the third year of implementing our new reading program that we’re going to see those students continue to gain the skills that they need to become proficient readers,” she said.
