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Simple Things Schools Can Do to Help
Source: U.S. Department of Education. Excerpted from Read*Write*Now!: Simple Things You Can Do. (December 1997).
School Personnel and Staff:
Start a schoolwide or community reading program. Two good ways to begin are to set up an America Reads Challenge: READ*WRITE*NOW! program or to sponsor an after-school AmeriCorps project. Identify students who need extra help in reading. Keep your school open in the evenings and on weekends to provide a safe site for children and tutors. Encourage older students to volunteer as reading tutors and reading teachers to help train tutors. Ask your librarian to identify appropriate reading materials. Ask your school district's special education office to provide training for volunteers working with students with disabilities. When children complete the program, reward them with a special activity such as a field trip.
Encourage family members to get involved in teaching reading skills and in raising their child's literacy standards. Let families know what they can do at home to help children become better readers, so that their children can read independently and well by the end of 3rd grade. Send home periodic progress reports on each child with suggestions on how families can help their children improve.
Publish a multilingual school newsletter. Take advantage of your school's ethnic diversity. Encourage multilingual teachers, families, and students to help. If you do not have a multilingual population, encourage your school's language clubs to contribute.
Teachers:
Rigorously teach reading and writing skills and the core academic subjects. Focus reading activities on developing higher-order thinking skills as well as on basic skills. Compare your reading curriculum and materials with those of the most successful schools and the best state standards.
Set high expectations for your students and encourage families to do the same. If you expect a lot from your students, they will work to meet your expectations and expect more of themselves. Consult with appropriate school or district staff on how to extend high expectations to include students with learning challenges and special needs.
Encourage students to read at home with their families. Provide suggested age-graduated children's book lists to families. Families are often unsure of the level at which their child reads; book lists can help them choose books of appropriate difficulty and provide examples of high-quality children's books. Develop a rewards system for students who take books home, read with their families, and report back on the books they have read.
Plan a field trip to the local library. Contact the head librarian to arrange for a guided tour and explanation of how students can use the library. Have all students sign up for their own library cards during this visit. If any of your students have visual, hearing, or learning disabilities, tell the librarians before the visit so they can make the necessary accommodations. Ask about special resources such as books on tape, sign-language interpreters, books in Braille or large print, and accessibility for wheelchairs.
Encourage students to go to the school library and to the local library after school. Such visits will help develop a link in the child's mind between free time and reading. Work with the school librarian or media specialist to place a collection of age-appropriate books on topics of high interest to your students in a special area.
Use interesting community settings to stimulate reading and writing. Organize students and their families to conduct an oral history project, a history or case study of their school, or a neighborhood project that involves collecting local stories or recipes for a community cookbook.
Have students work frequently in groups. Group work allows students with varying levels of literacy and language proficiency to both gain from and contribute to each other's learning. Rotate group members regularly to ensure that students work with all of their classmates.
Encourage the academic achievement of students with limited English proficiency. Include books in the native languages of students in the classroom library. Obtain or develop appropriate native language materials and technology for classroom use. Provide daily opportunities for students to read and write in both their first and second languages.
Administrators:
Encourage your teachers to work together to teach reading and writing across all the subjects. Encourage them to develop interdisciplinary courses. Provide opportunities for special educators to share with general educators effective strategies for working with students who have learning challenges. Introduce challenging reading and writing activities and provide technology to engage all students.
Offer extended learning time for students after school and in the summer to increase reading opportunities. Keep your school open beyond regular school hours and in the summer as a community learning center. Organize volunteer reading partners to come in during those times and read with your students. Request assistance from your school district's special education office to provide training for volunteers working with students who have learning challenges.
Establish a family literacy program. Provide literacy, parenting, and early childhood education programs for language-minority families and other families with literacy needs. Devote a PTA meeting on how to become a reading tutor and to inform parents of effective methods of reading with their children. Send home information about these programs in the family's native language.
Implement systematic and routine homework schedules. Help families know what to expect of their children and how to monitor assignments. Ensure that all teachers regularly assign challenging homework. Develop and send home a sheet of suggestions for families about how to help their children with their schoolwork.
Provide high quality staff development in second-language acquisition and bilingualism. Students with limited English proficiency experience greater success in school when their teachers understand the role of the first language in literacy learning. Encourage teachers to become familiar with the native language of their students.
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