Inspiring A Love of Reading At Sunset Elementary School

From Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District: At the start of the lesson in her Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) small group, a Sunset Elementary second grader arrived before her classmates, sat at a table with her reading intervention teacher, Lara Lesuer, and began recounting her reading assignment from the previous lesson. The book she read detailed certain animal footprints, and she told Lesuer about her favorites along with some facts she found interesting. When she needed help recalling something specific, she flipped through her book until she found the relevant passage and read it to Lesuer. The two other students in this session entered soon after, brandishing their books, with comments of their own.

This 40-minute lesson is for a small group of students who require additional assistance with their English Language Arts (ELA) subjects, and who test below their grade level in reading and writing. In this room, however, they are making significant progress and are well on their way to bridging that achievement gap. Each student has the time, space, and attention to find their footing on the foundation of skills they need to succeed at the same level as their classmates.

The idea behind the program is to give these students a more personalized and comprehensive instructional setting to increase their comfort, confidence, and ability. Last year, Sunset introduced Common Blocks as a strategy for optimizing scheduling for students. Common Blocks are times in the schedule set aside for reading lessons in the general class when students in the LLI leave that class to attend their small group lessons. This way, students at each grade level receive reading instruction parallel to their peers at a pace best suited to their needs.

Small groups offer some distinct advantages over the general classroom for students needing a more personalized instruction in ELA. Building confidence is one of the important ways the LLI program contributes to students’ overall reading ability. “I had a student who was afraid to read in his class with so many other students around,” said Lesuer. “But in the small group, he was comfortable reading out loud to his classmates.” Teachers can target the specific needs of each student, offering differentiated instruction in the areas it is most needed, from comprehension to vocabulary – an area particularly crucial for English learners.

While her students read aloud, Lesuer caught every opportunity to refine their abilities and their capacity to focus. In a general classroom, it could be a distraction for a student to raise his hand and tell an anecdote about the time he saw a bat, but Lesuer seized on it and guided the student toward a substantial connection to the text. “The material for LLI is highly engaging,” said Lesuer, who takes advantage in the level of interest she can get from her class. “With this small group setting, having them read out loud is a good opportunity to hear everyone and help when they need it, and we can also talk about what interests them in the reading.”

Between September and March of this year, eight first grade students and seven second graders moved up an entire grade level in reading and writing. “The fact that these students had been behind up to that point and then made that type of growth is exemplary,” said Principal Tom Jones, who continues to explore additional materials to build a more comprehensive program. “Intervention provides valuable data, so the program is always under revision and evaluation.” The information gathered from intervention classes helps the general education teachers as well. Reading intervention teachers can pinpoint the specific needs of students and collaborate with those students’ general education teachers to continue building on the successes of the small group setting.

“I love seeing their progress,” said Lesuer, after a student who stumbled in his reading of All About Bats caught his mistake and corrected himself. Just like the last book about footprints, each student had something to say about the new information they learned. In discussing echolocation, they instinctively flipped through the book for facts, finding the words to be a resource and not an obstacle in their education. They were acquiring the techniques required to progress in their reading level, and at the same time establishing a love of reading and writing - a hunger to learn and understand more, to share what they learned, and the confidence to connect to the world with words.

Photos of Lara Lesuer and her LLI students courtesy of LVJUSD