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Reading abilities for students at Ruston’s Glen View Elementary School are expected to soon get a boost thanks to a Louisiana Systemic Initiatives Program (LaSIP) grant received by Louisiana Tech University professors and instructors.

The grant will fund a program titled, “Powerful Instruction through Interactive Read Alouds, Literacy Stations and Workshop” which will be initiated at Glen View in the fall.

The grant was developed by Dr. Carrice Cummins, Dr. Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez and Dr. Libby Manning, who are all faculty members in Louisiana Tech’s College of Education.  It will provide 75 hours of professional development for 30 teachers from Glen View Elementary, a school that houses kindergarten through second-grade students in Lincoln Parish.

The professional development involves a weeklong institute (July 22-26) in addition to a school-wide workday (August 9) and several Saturday workshops throughout the school year.

Manning said Glen View was selected because the Louisiana Tech faculty who authored this grant had established a working relationship with teachers there through job-embedded professional development which started in January.

“This job-embedded professional development enhanced literacy strategies of teachers used in the classroom integral the parish-wide Powerful Instruction model,” Manning said.  “Students will actively be engaged in the literacy practices involved within this model, specifically as it relates to interactive read alouds, literacy stations, and reader’s and writer’s workshops.”

The Tech faculty members who developed the grant, along with Lori King, an instructor in Tech’s College of Liberal Arts, will serve as the team of presenters for the institute and yearlong professional development as well as a support system for the Glen View teachers throughout the 2013-2014 school year.

Manning said adoption of the Common Core State Standards initiated the idea of developing the program.

“With the demand for raised rigor in light of the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, Lincoln Parish adopted a literacy model titled ‘Powerful Instruction’ in January,” Manning said. “This model calls for a three-faceted approach to raising the level of literacy in classrooms throughout the district.”

Manning said the program will be implemented in three phases – interactive read alouds, literacy stations and workshop model.

The Glen View teachers have already implemented read alouds from January through May with the job-embedded professional development. The next step for Glen View Elementary is literacy stations.

The grant was one of 13 applied for through the LaSIP program and one of only seven that received funding.  Ranked No. 2 out of the 13 applications, the Louisiana Tech grant was one of five that received at least the full amount requested.
Written by T. Scott Boatright – boat@latech.edu