It’s “soundwork time” in Nettie Griffin’s Brook Forest kindergarten class, and her pupils are seated in a circle. Griffin calls out the word “whip” and a boy rushes up to a cookie sheet to spell it out with magnetic letters, moving the “wh” next to the “i” and the “p.”
Together, the pupils break apart the word, tapping the sounds out on their fingers. “Weh, eh, pah,” the pupils call out in unison before moving on to the next word.
Soundwork, which is what the kids call their daily phonemic awareness lessons, has become a regular part of the curriculum at Brook Forest thanks to an early literacy initiative launched this year in Butler Elementary District 53.
It’s just one of the many developments that educators have hit upon to improve academic opportunities for Oak Brook and Hinsdale pupils. From reading programs and gifted centers to new technology and more accurate testing programs, school officials are committed to finding new ways to build on their success.
Program brings improvements
At Brook Forest, reading specialist Patti Johnson said the new program already is yielding tangible improvements for kindergarten and 1st-grade pupils. That’s because the district created a new test that measures pre-reading skills.
The test showed that by the end of the first semester in January, 92 percent of kindergartners were able to identify the beginning sounds in words, compared to 69 percent who had that skill in October. In 1st grade, 96 percent of pupils were able to read nonsense words fluently, which indicates that they know how to match letters with sounds. This is up from 53 percent in October.
Johnson works with the kindergarten teachers daily and also works with small groups of 1st graders who need intervention so they don’t fall behind their classmates in reading.
Griffin said she only has to look at her pupils’ writing assignments to convince her that the daily lessons are hitting their mark. Nearly all of her pupils are using phonetic spelling to write words and sentences, which is a skill that typically takes hold in 1st grade.
“We’ve been able to move along farther because we do this every day for 30 minutes,” she said.
Early reading intervention
In neighboring Hinsdale-based Elementary School District 181, educators also have put resources behind early reading intervention.
First Steps began four years ago as a pilot program at Oak Elementary School and two other elementary schools in District 181, which covers seven elementary schools and two middle schools in Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills and Burr Ridge.
Since then, other schools have come aboard, and now all seven of the district’s elementary schools are participating in First Steps. Last school year, the program served 114 pupils–nearly 15 percent of the children enrolled.
Each 1st grader identified through reading readiness assessments as needing an extra boost meets one-on-one with his or her tutor for 35 minutes a day during a semester, or about 75 sessions.
Tutors, who are hired and paid by the district, give the pupils reading tips and instruction in a structured setting to increase their comprehension and reading fluency.
The program isn’t limited to in-school activities. Pupils take home word-sorting exercises, as well as a familiar book. They are encouraged to read with an adult at home.
Pupils make gains
Participants in the program are administered end-of-program assessments by their tutors, said Gayle Galloway, assistant superintendent for learning in District 181.
“Most of our students do make significant gains,” she said.
In addition, those who have gone through the program are given end-of-year assessments in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades to make sure they continue to hold on to the skills they learned in First Steps.
Parents also have praised the program.
“Gradually, as each session went by, she showed remarkable improvement,” said Ellen McGann, whose daughter MaryEllen, 7, went through the program last year when she was in 1st grade at Monroe School.
First Steps may be the most ambitious reading program in District 181, but it isn’t the only one. K Steps in Kindergarten starts in mid-March and continues until the end of May. “It focuses on reading readiness skills and involves selected students who need to have their reading readiness skills boosted,” Galloway said. “It’s a one-on-one structured program.”
On the other end of the spectrum, pupils in District 181 who need an extra challenge have the Gifted Resource Center.
Each Wednesday, 22 3rd graders are bused to Walker Elementary School in Clarendon Hills from the other six elementary schools in District 181. There they tackle challenging math problems and dissect story plot development in lessons with coordinator Mary Sparks.
Center serves gifted pupils
The pupils in the Gifted Resource Center work at a higher level and faster pace than they can in classes in their home schools. Gifted pupils at higher grade levels also meet one day a week in the center.
District 181 started its pull-out gifted education program about 10 years ago, after officials decided that just providing supplemental materials for gifted pupils didn’t meet all their needs.
The program typically involves only about 5 percent of the district’s pupils, but the district acknowledged that other children could benefit from accelerated instruction in certain subjects.
To bridge that gap, District 181 in the 1999-2000 school year started a second tier of gifted education services called the Gifted and Talented Program, which is also open to 1st and 2nd graders before they are eligible for the Gifted Resource Center.
It provides accelerated classes in math and English for pupils who fall just below the cutoff for inclusion in the pull-out program or who tested in the top 5 percent of their class in just math or English.
Distance learning possible
At the high school level, the creation of a distance learning lab this semester could offer students at Hinsdale South and Hinsdale Central a broader curriculum and expose them to the perspectives of experts nationwide.
The video-conferencing equipment was installed in January. The technology will allow the two schools to create an interactive link between each school, and to hundreds of universities and businesses in the country, said Mary Winiecki, media specialist at Hinsdale South.
