Latest news with #ReallyGreatReading
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Really Great Reading Expands to Michigan
WASHINGTON, June 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading science of reading innovator Really Great Reading is excited to announce it has been included on the Michigan Department of Education's official list of approved Tier 1 literacy programs, continuing a growth trajectory that reflects the trust and reliability of the company's years of experience in evidence-based instruction. Really Great Reading is dedicated to improving reading outcomes for students by developing materials that align with the latest research and educational standards. It offers foundational literacy products for students in grades K-3 along with supplemental educational curriculum and propriety materials that include instruction, assessment and professional development, all of which help educators align daily practices with evidence-based reading methods. "Our programs are rooted in the science of reading, which mirrors Michigan's emphasis on evidence-based instruction," Amy Vanden Boogart, Vice President of Curriculum Products and Services, said. "These partnerships are important because they open new opportunities for all students, whether they're proficient readers or struggling readers. We know the lifelong challenges that can develop when reading skills fall behind. We're excited to be part of Michigan's education offerings so we can reach more students. That is what inspires us." Being placed on the list of offerings means school districts across Michigan can begin using Really Great Reading's Tier 1 curriculum and professional development products with full confidence. Ongoing coaching and implementation support are available to ensure district-wide success. Of the new curriculum offerings added recently to Michigan's approved list, Really Great Reading ranked No. 2 out of 11. "We have been impressed with Really Great Reading and its effectiveness with students in our district," said Nancy Schulz, Director of Professional Development and School Improvement for Wayne-Westland Community School District in Westland, Mich. "The data shows it works not only for our students, but for our teachers as well. The products are easy to use, hands-on and engaging." The study and science of reading over several decades has led educators and experts to better understand what works with all kinds of students. Really Great Reading, founded 20 years ago by Scott DeSimone, includes a defined scope and sequence for letter recognition, phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. As this year's National Assessment of Educational Progress results demonstrated, millions of children fall behind in reading each year, which can lead to reduced lifetime earnings, higher dropout rates, poor workforce readiness and increased economic inequality. "We know how to teach reading effectively," DeSimone said. "To move the needle, we must ensure every teacher as the right training, provide diagnostic tools to identify and address gaps, and support our older students with proven approaches." ABOUT REALLY GREAT READING Really Great Reading is a leading provider of research-based literacy programs and resources. For nearly 20 years, the company has been dedicated to improving reading outcomes for students by developing materials that align with the latest research and educational standards. Its mission is to empower educators and students with effective tools and support to foster a love of reading and ensure academic success. To learn more, visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Really Great Reading Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pierce County school district passes on controversial K-5 reading curriculum
The Peninsula School District board voted to adopt a new elementary school language-arts curriculum called Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) at its May 6 meeting, passing over a second program, Wit & Wisdom, that drew opposition at a school board meeting last summer and has generated controversy in other districts across the country. The new curriculum will roll out in K-5 classrooms this fall, replacing the Reading Wonders curriculum used in the district since 2015, according to the district curriculum adoption webpage. The change is part of the district's efforts in recent years to close student literacy gaps by changing how their teachers teach reading. Here's what to know about the new curriculum, Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 3rd Edition, and how it won out over its alternative. After a screening process led by a curriculum adoption committee of K-5 teachers and staff, the district landed on CKLA and Wit & Wisdom, paired with Really Great Reading, to pilot in 37 K-5 classrooms during the 2024-2025 school year, according to the district website and a staff presentation to the school board. Wit & Wisdom and Really Great Reading were paired together because they teach different skills. While Wit & Wisdom 'builds language comprehension and reading and writing skills,' Really Great Reading 'focuses on foundational skills, such as phonemic awareness, decoding, encoding, spelling, handwriting, and vocabulary,' the Great Minds curriculum company website says. The News Tribune reported that several parents, including members of a local Moms for Liberty group, opposed Wit & Wisdom at a school board meeting last June. Seven people spoke out against the Peninsula School District's potential use of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum at the June 18 board meeting, according to The News Tribune's reporting. One speaker, a parent of a part-time homeschooler in the district and of another child who formerly attended a school in the district, expressed concern that the curriculum taught kindergarteners about the Great Depression and race-based discrimination during the Harlem Renaissance. A special education teacher in a nearby district who was not a Moms for Liberty member said that the content in Wit & Wisdom texts was triggering to some of her middle school students, making it difficult for them to read and learn, The News Tribune reported. Moms for Liberty is a national nonprofit that generally opposes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and LGBTQ+ initiatives in public schools, and describes itself as 'dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government,' according to the group's website. Moms for Liberty has been labeled an antigovernment organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy nonprofit that advocates for civil rights and racial justice. Wit & Wisdom has also sparked controversies in states such as Tennessee and Kentucky, with some arguing that it teaches critical race theory or introduces content that isn't age-appropriate, according to reporting from The Tennessean and The Lexington Herald-Leader. Critical race theory originated in the 1970s in academia and is based on the premise that racial bias is embedded in U.S. policies and institutions, according to an explainer from Reuters. The Great Minds website says that the Wit & Wisdom 'curriculum complies with the laws of every state in which we operate and does not teach critical race theory (CRT).' Natalie Boyle, the district's director of elementary teaching and learning, told the school board at the April 22 meeting that the adoption committee's recommendation for CKLA 3rd Edition was unanimous — something she said has never happened in all of the curriculum adoptions she has worked on. The adoption committee had 23 members, according to the presentation. It 'was very evident that our teachers felt strongly about this,' she said. Boyle and other staff presenters didn't speak in-depth to the differences in content between Wit & Wisdom/Really Great Reading and CKLA, but second-grade Discovery Elementary teacher Ashley Trinh said that one factor in CKLA's favor was the fact that it teaches all necessary reading skills in one curriculum. 'Wit and Wisdom and Really Great Reading were just so different, it was hard to pair them in a cohesive way,' Trinh said to the board at the April 22 meeting. CKLA would also be cheaper to implement than Wit & Wisdom, Boyle told the board. The estimated cost of purchasing all teacher and student materials for Wit & Wisdom paired with Really Great Reading over a three-year period would be about $1.3 million, compared to about $840,000 for CKLA. Those costs wouldn't include professional development costs to train teachers to use the new curriculum, Boyle said. The 'Core Knowledge' in CKLA refers to the knowledge that students build in literature, the arts, science and social studies via the curriculum, said Kelly Pruitt, the district's elementary instructional facilitator, at the board meeting. A graphic included in the staff presentation showed the progression of topics students learn about in each grade, from taking care of the planet and Native American cultures in kindergarten to global architecture and oceans in fifth grade. The curriculum also teaches foundational skills of reading, beginning with skills like letter recognition and understanding the features of a sentence, and progressing to skills like word recognition and grammar, according to the CKLA website. Teachers praised the CKLA curriculum at the meeting and said they received a lot of positive feedback from students and parents. 'The first thing I would say as a classroom teacher is that my students were really engaged in a new way that I hadn't seen for the last few years, with the content with CKLA,' Trinh, the second-grade teacher at Discovery Elementary, told the board. 'They were excited to hear the next story, asking me if they could read ahead, (saying) 'I really want to find out what happens next,' and they just were really excited each day for the new knowledge lessons.' Her students were 'obsessed' with the Greek myths unit, and she saw them making a lot of real-world connections to what they were reading, she added. Marci Cummings-Cohoe, a first-grade teacher at Swift Water Elementary, told the board families were reporting 'pretty in-depth' conversations at home. Students were talking about the Mayans and the Aztecs at the dinner table, she reported hearing from families. The district kept 'the science of reading' front-and-center during the process of choosing a new K-5 English Language Arts curriculum, staff told the board. The 'science of reading' is a term that describes a large body of research from areas including cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience and other fields into how people become proficient in reading and writing, why some face challenges and how these skills can be taught most effectively, according to The Reading League. The Reading League is a national nonprofit that supports 'the awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction, their website says. In years past, parents have spoken to the school board about their concerns that the district was failing to adequately support students with dyslexia. In June 2023, a literacy task force convened by Superintendent Krestin Bahr presented its findings to the board about how the district could implement systems to ensure all third grade students are reading at or above grade level, and introduced a professional development course that the district was beginning to roll out for teachers to learn more about the science of reading. The four district staff members designated as facilitators for this course, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), helped screen potential elementary school reading curricula, Kelly Pruitt, the district's elementary instructional facilitator, said at the board meeting on April 22. They reviewed each program based on an array of criteria from sources like The Reading League and the Institute of Education Sciences, an independent and non-partisan research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, according to the rubrics posted on the district's curriculum adoption website.
