Reading
Project Read Plus

Using multiple intervention strategies, a complete reading program in Riverside, California, proposes to leave no child behind.

Judy Lloyd's kindergarteners practice Word Work, part of Ben Franklin Elementary's complete reading program.

In Judy Lloyd's kindergarten class, three students gather at the front of the room, each wearing a neck card painted with one letter. "I'm a hissing sound," says the first about the "S" around his neck.

"I'm a glue letter," says the child with an "A."

"I'm a popping sound," adds the child with the "T."

Classmates grill them for more clues: "Do your vocal chords vibrate when you say your letter?" "How much air comes out of your mouth?" "What are your teeth and tongue doing?"

Lloyd and her students are practicing "Word Work," one successful component of Project Read Plus--a district-wide, complete reading program being implemented at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Riverside, Califor-nia. But the real plus in Read Plus is teachers trained to use a variety of research-based strategies to build success for all beginning readers, especially those at risk.

"Not every tool works with every child," says Lloyd. "You use every tool you can to reach at-risk kids. If you don't, they're the ones who will fade into the woodwork."

Designed by Robert Calfee, dean of the Graduate School of Education at University of California at Riverside, Read Plus began in 1999 as a six-week reading intervention program for at-risk kindergarteners. Twenty teachers from five schools were trained in a full complement of reading strategies--including Word Work, an integrated decoding-spelling program that combines whole language and phonemic awareness.

"They love it," says Lloyd. "Once it's ingrained in their thinking, they can transfer it into their writing, spelling, and eventually their reading."

For 30 minutes twice a week, teachers help children articulate letters and words, helping kids recognize, for example, how much air comes out when they say the letter and where their tongues are in their mouths.

"I meet with small groups of students every day, especially the ones who aren't quite cognitively addressing how to say each sound," says Lloyd.

Yet, when 20 kids in district schools still struggled after the project's first year, researchers set up a tutoring program for the now second graders. After just ten weeks of "lost sheep intervention," all but two are reading at or above grade level. Small-group instruction and tutoring have been incorporated into the curriculum of all nine K-1 teachers participating in year three of the university study.

"There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not addressing students' individual needs," says Lloyd. "I'm seeing firsthand how that attention is paying off."

Training is ongoing, with project teachers meeting once a month to share successes and challenges; they connect regularly via a project chat room.

"Every child can learn," says Lloyd. "You can't leave any child behind. The more tools you can give a child, the greater the success."

--Dina S. Gómez

For More: Visit www.education.ucr.edu/research/calfee.

How To ...
Choose Great Books for the Classroom

Who better to talk about great books than Katherine Paterson, Newbery award-winning author of Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved and recipient of the 1998 Hans Christian Andersen Award?

• Some of the worthiest books have never won an award, and some have come in second. It's only the test of time that books like Tuck Everlasting or Charlotte's Web will become a classic instead of the books that beat them out.

• In general, look for plots that grip and satisfy, characters to deeply care about, a world you can believe in, a book worth all the trees that will sacrifice their lives to make it.

• Select a book for the joy of it, not for how you can "use" it. That's just a by-product. The first thing children should learn is the joy of books and what they can do for you.

• There's a good reason to choose "hard books," because they give adults and children a place to talk, but only if the adult has carefully read them too. Never stop children from reading difficult books, but always be around when they finish.

• Never take anyone else's recommendation about a book you're going to use with students, because you know your kids better than anybody. You shouldn't be using a book you don't like or aren't comfortable discussing.

• Harry Potter disproves the notion that children will not read fat books or that children will not read, period. It's taught a whole generation of children that there are things books can do that nothing else can.

For more, visit www.terabithia.com and www.harpercollins.com. Just out are The Field of the Dogs, for "readers who need three pages and a cliffhanger," and Marvin One Too Many, about the last one in class to learn to read.