Hanes Elementary School in Irving ISD, Irving, Texas has a high percentage of Limited English Proficiency Students.  Last school year 89% of the Hispanic population at Hanes passed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, not far behind the school pass rate of 93%. “We were first out of 20 elementary schools in our district in reading,” reports Principal Stacy Blevins with pride.

Irving ISD, with 33,000 students, faces a serious challenge, one common to many school districts in the US—increasing numbers of ELL students who struggle with English. A snapshot of the Irving district shows that 73% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunches, 67% of the students are Hispanic, and 39% have limited English proficiency. “We needed to think outside the box to help our most at-risk students,” states Paula Dugger, Reading Coordinator for the District. “And along came Read Right. It was not like any other program or methodology we had ever used before. Read Right has definitely met the need for our Tier 3 students.”  Irving started with 11 elementary schools and, based on the promising results, Read Right was expanded to include all 20 elementary schools, 7 middle schools and 5 high schools.

One of the teachers who contributed to the results at Hanes was DeAnne McGee, who had taught the ELL pullout program at the school for a number of years. In the fall of 2004 when the district brought in Read Right for Tier 3 students, McGee was trained in the new constructivist-based reading and language acquisition methodology. Third-grader Ivonne was one of the students in the new program. “I had Ivonne in first and second grade,” recalls McGee, “and she didn’t make much progress. Then I had her again in third grade. That’s when Read Right came on board, and after only 30 hours of Read Right, Ivonne just took off - it’s like night and day! She passed the third grade TAKS—something I would never have predicted at the time she finished second grade.”

Principal Blevins gives a lot of credit to her teachers for the results at Hanes. “You have to have strong teachers who are committed to kids, and you have to have good programs like Read Right. Read Right played a big part in moving our school from ‘acceptable’ to ‘recognized.’” She reports that the teachers are behind the program. “Teachers have said to me, ‘I can really see a difference in these Read Right kids.’ When a veteran teacher comes to you and says that, then you know the program is working.”

Traditional Methods Don’t Measure Up

McGee, now a Read Right Trainer for Irving ISD, witnesses the success of students first hand every day. “When I was using the traditional teaching methods for ELL,” McGee explains, “students would hardly move at all in a year. With Read Right’s methodology—the language acquisition, the vocabulary, the reading ability, the comprehension—it all came together, and virtually every student makes rapid progress. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Other schools in Irving ISD report similar results. During the 2007-2008 school year 306 ELL students tutored with Read Right gained 1.9 grade levels in an average of 47 hours of tutoring (as measured by the Gates MacGinitie Test of Reading). The Normal Curve Equivalency (NCE) gain for these students was 12.4. (NCE gains between 1.9 to 3.2 in one year of instruction are considered “significant and meaningful.”)

Similar results were registered in 73 other Texas schools implementing Read Right with their ELL students. In the 2007-2008 school year a total of 1, 275 ELL students in Read Right projects were pre- and post-tested. After an average of 43 hours of tutoring they gained 1.7 grades and their NCE gain score was 9.7.

Results like these invigorate teachers like McGee, who remarks, “If we, at the district, ever quit doing Read Right I’d have to do something else. I couldn’t teach reading any other way. It’s the only way I’ll do it now. It works and it works well. To go back to anything that doesn’t work would be cheating the children.”

“This is a program that is needed,” Principal Blevins agrees. “We need it.”

To hear Ivonne reading at the beginning of her Read Right tutoring, click the first link below, The Singer. Then listen to Ivonne after 29.6 hours of tutoring read from the book, Fireflies (click on the second link). No page will be displayed; your media player will appear.

http://www.readright.com/samples/ivone_the_singer.mp3

http://www.readright.com/samples/ivone_fireflies.mp3

For More Information

If you would like to learn more about Read Right, a school information packet may be requested by contacting Maureen Mortlock at Read Right Systems. The packet includes details about research, theory and methodology, implementation, investment, and a referral list of teachers and educators with first hand experiences, etc. Phone: 360-427-9440 or Email: maureenm@readright.com.  Further information can be found at www.readright.com.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who is particularly interested in exploring how to solve the most difficult reading problems while simultaneously facilitating rapid gains in English competence. Thank you.