Foothill High School Reading Initiatives

About our School Accredited high school for long-term incarcerated youth.  1 Year Commitments  2 Year Commitments  Youthful Offenders – Committed until age 21  Approximately 125 high school age students  Average reading score around 5 th grade level

Our Reading Initiatives Increasing student reading is one of our goals on our EPSS Plan. Accomplishing this goal is supported by the following reading initiatives:  Teaching reading strategies within the content areas  Accelerated Reader (New for School Year)  Read 180  Rewards & Sounds and Letters for most challenged readers

Selection of the Read 180 Program A committee reviewed different programs and selected the Read 180 Program based on the components that the program offered to address reading deficiencies. The program appeared to be very comprehensive. Read 180 was initially implemented for the school year.

How we use the Read 180 Program Students reading below the 6 th grade level are automatically scheduled for the Read 180 class without option. Students reading above the 6 th grade reading level are told that they can register for Read 180 as an elective class. All students taking Read 180 are provided elective credit for the course.

How we use the Read 180 Program Continued Read 180 is currently designed to operate on a 90 minute class period. Our school runs 50 minute periods, however, next year we will run Read 180 on a “two period block” in other words, we will run two 50 minute periods as one class period so Read 180 classes will be 100 minutes long. This decision was made to better meet the needs of our students and implement Read 180 as it was designed to be implemented.

The Read 180 Classroom The Read 180 Classroom has a full time teacher and a full time Educational Assistant. There are about 8-10 students per class. Effective the school year the program will be run as follows:  25 Minutes whole group instruction  minute small group rotations including teacher small group instruction, computer instruction, and modeled and independent reading.  15 minutes whole group wrap up.

Difficulties We’ve Encountered Technology issues – Namely not having the proper server and computers with enough memory. Our technology issues should be resolved to better support the reading program for the start of the school year. Our school schedule did not accommodate the Read 180 “block” schedule. However, we have accommodated this need for the school year. Having committed and trained personnel. Classroom teacher commitment is imperative. To support this, we have provided continued staff development that involves visiting other schools that use the Read 180 program, we have brought program developers come to address our entire school staff and we have our Read 180 teacher attending another district’s Read 180 New Implementation Training as a refresher and to learn things that might have been missed the first time around.

How is the Read 180 Program Working with our Students? Data collection has been an area of weakness for our school. However, we have provided intensive training in this area for school wide data collection.  We have data teams that meet on a weekly basis to review classroom specific data and make decisions based on this information.  Additionally, our data teams analyze our state reported data for and makes school wide decisions based on this information. We have seen average increases in reading levels from between 1-2 grade levels within one academic year of being in the Read 180 program for students who were in the program for one full academic year.

Conclusion The holds much promise for our Reading Program. Our technology issues, scheduling issues and staffing issues appear to be resolved which will positively impact the program. One of our goals for the school year is to provide more training and support in the use of data driven decision making. We will set goals and use our data to help us adjust what we do to reach those goals.