Getting a read on reading

A federal grant pays for instruction andmaterials.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Paul Hardaway and Triston Boyle get to spend time each week playing "Go Fish" at school, but with a new twist.
The two first-graders at Thaddeus Stevens School in New Castle aren't matching up traditional playing cards but learning words that will help them become better readers.
"Do you have a card that rhymes with fox?" asks Paul.
"No. Go fish," Triston replies.
It's all part of the New Castle School Area District's plan to have all pupils reading at or above grade level by the third grade.
Three days each week for 35 minutes the first-graders go over phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension and phonemic awareness -- which differs from phonics because it identifies different sounds rather than whole words. Second-graders work on those skills twice a week and third-graders once a week.
At Thaddeus Stevens and the district's other primary centers, pupils spend time in the literacy lab reading aloud from books, playing games with sounds, listening to and working on LeapPads and working directly with teachers.
The labs were started in the district in October, said Debra DeBlasio, principal at Thaddeus Stevens and John F. Kennedy Primary Centers.
They began as intense classes for children who weren't reading well, but grew to include all pupils in grades one through three.
"This is not modeled after anything. We built it from the ground up," said Carol Herbert, one of the school district's reading specialists.
Success
A $3 million, five-year federal Reading First grant is paying for the extra instructors and materials.
"The goal is to get the children reading at grade level by third grade," DeBlasio said.
Herbert estimates that about 60 percent of the first-graders are now reading at second-grade level since starting the literacy lab.
DeBlasio said she's happy with the program because it is a more meaningful way to teach reading. The pupils are getting a better understanding of what words mean and how to read by using the various techniques offered in the literacy lab, she said.
The lab is part of the larger Success For All Program the district has been using the past few years to improve reading skills. In Success For All, pupils spend a 90-minutes block each day in instructional reading. The literacy lab adds to that program.
"We were able to look at our gaps and do what we needed to fill them in," DeBlasio said.
cioffi@vindy.com