Kindergarten is a formative time when students start the foundations of their reading and writing skills. For the past several years, many of CSD elementary school teachers have been trained in the Orton-Gillingham method of teaching reading. This is a phonics approach to literacy that benefits ALL students, including students with dyslexia. To reinforce the phonics skills the kindergarten students are learning, DEF has recently funded a grant to purchase sets of decodable readers for each kindergarten classroom at Glennwood Elementary. The decodable readers work hand in hand with the Fundations phonics curriculum.
“Glennwood teachers are excited to use the new SPIRE decodable readers with their students,” said Amelia Copp, IEP teacher at Glennwood. “What sets these decodables apart from others is they cover a variety of topics in science, social studies, and literature and include several genres such as biographies, poetry, Greek myths, articles, and more.” With these new readers, all Glennwood students will have access to books they can and want to read.
Back in 2019, DEF also funded a grant for the kindergarten team to purchase individual white boards so that each student could practice dictation, handwriting and sound awareness to supplement their reading and writing skills.
