Richland One receives $1.1 million Reading First grant

Richland School District One will receive $1.1million for the first year of a multi-year Reading First grant to improve children’s reading achievement through scientifically proven methods of instruction.

A total of $11.5 million has been awarded to 24 school districts in South Carolina. The funds were awarded to the state by the U.S. Department of Education after the South Carolina Department of Education’s (SDE) application passed a rigorous review panel that judged the plan against 25 main review criteria. Over six years, the state will receive approximately $88.6 million in support, subject to the state’s successful implementation and congressional appropriations. 

Carver-Lyon, Hyatt Park, Mill Creek and Lewis Greenview elementary schools will participate in the program.

The five components of the program are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

Each school will have an on-site literacy coach, trained by the SDE, who will work with teachers on effective strategies for teaching reading. In addition, there will be a Reading Recovery teacher for kindergarten and first grade, and reading intervention teacher for second and third grades.

The schools’ leadership team, as well as all K-3 teachers, will participate in a course taught by the literacy coach for which they will receive graduate credit.

According to Linda Gillespie, the district’s Title I coordinator, the grants fits perfectly with Richland One’s Language Arts Instructional Plan. “We hope that this will become a model for all schools in the district, “ she said. The goal is to have all children reading by the end of the third grade.”