Dupage Policy Journal

At the Dec. 13 meeting of the Elmhurst school board, Katie Lyons, the executive director of elementary education, gave a presentation on the impact of recent efforts in improving K-5 literacy programs. 

The board was told that based on the district's research, the focus in creating skilled readers and writers involves two main skills: language comprehension, which includes background knowledge, vocabulary, and language structure; and word recognition, which includes phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. 

"When we reflect on progress, it's essential that we not only focus on those teacher actions, but on how teachers' actions are leading to impact on our students actions," Lyons said. "So we also evaluate these actions through the phases of 'learn,' 'deepen,' and 'know.' Our goal is to move all of our students to the 'know' phase in which students truly take ownership and fully engage in the learning, independently comprehend and respond to complex texts, skillfully communicate this knowledge across a variety of writing types, and demonstrate deep vocabulary and knowledge of the topic under study. It's also important to note that we expect teachers to have high expectations for their students at all implementation phases. However, once teachers have learned the curriculum, they are more fully able to refine their actions to more completely support students developing persistence and academic mindsets within the 'know' phase."

Lyons told the board that to redevelop its instructional priorities, the administrative team researched a variety of methods and backgrounds, and then spent a lot of time surveying and communicating with teachers about their perceptions. With this information, the team rewrote its focus on literacy and adopted new literacy curriculum resources in grades K-5, including the district-wide program Wit and Wisdom, which broadens and builds a student’s entire knowledge span. 

The district also worked on improving the content and quality of its professional development sessions. It had a variety of development opportunities over the past year that applied to literacy efforts, like teacher learning communities, collaboratives/coaches, demonstration schools, and specialists, among other opportunities. Comments from teachers increased the knowledge base for both teachers and students in the new focus and was improving classroom programs and results.