CHANDLER — Local nonprofit Valley Leadership is launching a new program that helps teachers sharpen their skills when it comes to teaching children literacy.
The program, Leaders for Literacy, sends volunteers to cover classrooms so teachers can attend training to learn new, evidence-based literacy teaching strategies without missing time with their students.
Advocates say the training will help teachers improve how they teach basic reading skills like vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and phonics.
The program currently serves 11 schools in the Roosevelt, Phoenix Elementary and Mesa school districts.
How Valley Leadership is helping teachers teach reading
Part of the reason why Valley Leadership launched this program is to help combat Arizona’s falling literacy rates. Data shows that only 39% of third graders reading at grade level right now.
David Scott with First Western Bank and Trust said he started volunteering with the program after seeing his son struggle with reading in kindergarten.
“Because there were so many students at the time that were in a similar situation as him, there weren’t enough resources to be able to devote to him specifically,” Scott told KTAR News 92.3 FM.
“We started to get notices from the teacher that he could potentially be held back at the end of third grade and that’s where it really opened up our awareness to just how significant this problem was.”
What’s the impact of the metro Phoenix literacy program so far?
The pilot program launched this spring, and so far, teachers tell him it’s been a huge help.
“Universally, the responses have been positive,” Scott said. “They recognize that having those additional skills are beneficial for their ability to do their job.”
He said substitutes have to be certified by the Arizona Department of Education before entering the classroom.
“One of the beautiful things about this is that you stay with the same classroom for the entire semester,” Scott said. “So, you get to know the kids, they get to know you, you get to have a relationship with that teacher and get really some first-hand knowledge of what that job is like.”
Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.
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