Literacy in Action

The Collaborative’s standards-based Literacy in Action initiative was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Lucent Technologies Foundation. The impetus for the program was the recognition that fundamental to academic achievement in all content areas—including mathematics and science—is an ability to read a full-range of texts well, and to communicate ideas in written form clearly, thoroughly and compellingly. For that reason, the Collaborative committed itself to development of cutting-edge literacy curricula and a teacher professional development program that would support high literacy skill-development among all students. The Literacy in Action program consists of two components: an elementary school program based on implementation of a daily 2.5 hour language arts block, and a middle and high school program specifically designed for students who are one or two years below grade level in reading.

Goals

The Literacy in Action initiative has provided a set of classroom practices and strategies designed to build teacher capacity to develop strong reading and effective writing skilss in all students. The goals of the initiative are:

• to develop teachers’ abilities and skills to teach higher level reading and writing;
• to deepen teachers’ knowledge base about language arts learning and extend their understanding of effective reading and writing instructional practices, including ways to differentiate instruction and to target specific reading needs; and
• to develop teacher capacity to build students’ reading comprehension in the content areas, especially mathematics and science.

Results

The Literacy in Action initiative led to improved student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics in schools participating in the program. Among the initiative’s other impacts are:

• region-wide implementation of a standards-based reading and writing instructional program with high-quality professional development that has been recognized statewide and nationally as an effective model for improving literacy skills among all students;
• a significant increase in the number of students scoring at the high end of the state’s writing assessment;
• implementation of a content-rich curriculum with genre studies in narrative, report writing, and persuasive writing—genres that are tested in state assessments;
• far larger numbers of students, in both English and Spanish, writing passages that go beyond the formula writing required by state assessments, and writing longer, more complex passages;
• unprecedented commitment of school resources to improving literacy, including the principal’s commitment of time to the total redesign and reorganization of a curricular program, attending program-wide meetings and seminars, and making visits to literacy initiative classrooms.

← Back to Program List