Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Literacy on the rise at Terrace Elementary

 

At Terrace Elementary, and across Spring Branch ISD, teachers are implementing Teachers College Reading & Writing Project (TCRWP) Units of Study to grow and strengthen students’ literacy skills, a top district priority. These abilities undergird success in all academics, and prepare students to be life-long learners. 

View video of TCRWP in action at Terrace.

Terrace Elementary began using the Units of Study two years ago. The campus is an affiliate school with TCRWP, which means staff developers from Teacher's College regularly come to the school to share strategies with the teaching staff and students to assist with the work of literacy development.

Teachers applaud the self-paced nature of the project’s framework for keeping students interested in owning their learning.

Each morning at Terrace Elementary, students at every grade level are seen absorbed in books, happily illustrating a piece of personal writing, and collaborating shoulder-to-shoulder with their peers to support each other's learning.

Terrace students are making remarkable progress in their literacy skills through the staff’s implementation of TCRWP and the Units of Study.

Recent Terrace Elementary data from October 2019 to February 2020 shows increases of 10 to 22 percent in students across all grades reading above grade level.

“Implementation of this teaching and learning model has transformed literacy instruction at our school,” April Falcon-Blanco, Terrace principal, said. 

“Our students are making growth at every level and have developed a love for reading and writing. It is a consistent, research-informed approach to teaching reading and writing that is personalized and meets the needs of every child.”

What are the daily components for each TCRWP Unit of Study?

Each session begins with students in whole group for a short, ten-minute mini lesson to explicitly teach a skill or strategy using expert-approved phrasing, props, videos, showing examples, recalling previously learned skills, etc.

For example, in Sarah Curry’s third grade classroom at Terrace, the students were wrapping up a Reading Workshop unit on the genre of mysteries. She began the lesson dressed as a detective, and played music that fit the theme, which immediately grabbed the students’ attention.

Curry then introduced the concept of fake clues, or "red herrings," mystery writers use to create confusion and suspense for the reader, as well as detective characters. She taught the students strategies to determine whether the author included a real or fake clue.

Next, the teacher explicitly models the strategy with one student, so others in the class can observe how to put the lesson into action and know what they should do when they are independently reading.

In Carla Neal’s second grade classroom, she and a student modeled her expectations for the class by reading a passage from a book. Neal then asked questions of her “partner” about parts of the text she “did not understand.” They also discussed what they had just read to keep track of the story line.

During the active engagement of the mini lesson, students are given an opportunity to work with a partner to try out the skill, helping each other comprehend the lesson's aims.

Finally, the students are invited to “try it on your own” during independent reading or writing time. During this time, the teacher will strategically work with small groups or hold individual student conferences to support and develop each child as a reader and writer based on data.

Teachers keep anecdotal records of each student’s growth and areas of struggle by observing them during independent practice, and small group and/or one-on-one table conferences.  They use these notes to monitor the progress of each child’s reading level and to inform instruction.

“She just self-corrected herself,” kindergarten teacher, Rosie Jones, said as she observed a student reading during a conference. “It didn’t sound right to her, so she re-read it to get it right.”

 

During the instructional and practice phases, teachers write suggestions, strategies and sequencing skills on colorful, and symbolically illustrated, mini-posters called anchor charts. These are posted around the room for students to reference during independent and/or partner reading and writing time.

As a tool for the teachers to use, anchor chart steps are reduced to become individual notes that can be added to a student’s work folder when it appears a student has forgotten to use one of the learning strategies. This is a signal to the student of what to work harder on next time.

Helping parents help their children also helps students progress through levels of literacy proficiency. “We have been sending home books with the students that are at or above their reading levels,” Meaghan Berry, first grade teacher, said.

She noticed that some of her students came back to school in January reading a level higher than before winter break, because they had practiced at home.

“We are really focusing on comprehension,” said Ms. Berry. “I have seen huge growth [in my students].”

The TCRWP methodology is successful because the pace and place of each student is carefully nurtured along an individualized progression. 

“A balanced approach to literacy is the best way to raise literate students,” Ms. Curry said.

As literacy continues to be a driver for overall academic growth in SBISD, the results of implementing TCRWP strategies at every school indicate an upward swing in students’ progression in all subjects.

"SBISD and the Units of Study is a win-win situation," Director of Humanities K-5, Joyce Evans, said. "With the state-of-art tools and research-based methods for teaching reading and writing developed by TCRWP, the teachers of SBISD are strategically working with their students to become avid readers, writers and thinkers." 

Submitted by Becky Wuerth, SBISD Communications

becky.wuerth@springbranchisd.com