by PRP Group, on 01/14/2022
A rural district successfully aligned its literacy curriculum across grades and content areas amid a pandemic to improve student growth.
Not long ago at Midlakes Schools, our teachers leaned on their own varied backgrounds and experiences that informed their approaches to teaching students to read and write. They aligned well with one another within each grade, but vertical alignment was more challenging.
Our rural district serves about 1,500 students, nearly half of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch. We also have a growing population of English language learners. As we grappled with the disruptions caused by COVID-19, we realized that students would be better served by a unified approach to reading and writing that our teachers believed in and that extended throughout the grades. Refreshing a literacy curriculum in the middle of a pandemic may be nerve-wracking, but the transition has served our students well. Here are four keys to our success.