The Bush Reading teachers, Julie Yochim, Jacquelyn Daigler, JoAnn Galbier, focus on the fundamentals of reading with students. They received professional development in LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) from the district, which provides teachers with the skills they need to master the fundamentals of reading instruction–phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and language. The teachers are currently focusing on phonological awareness and sounds as those are the basic building blocks that students need to understand before being able to read.

“It is so important at the elementary school level to teach foundational skills that are the building blocks for reading success,” said the teachers. “Especially with everything happening with COVID, we have definitely seen a gap in students’ literacy skills and need to focus on interventions that will help students be ready to read. Using LETRS is a different approach than used in the past. Students are learning to decode words, so there is no more guessing. We are equipping students with tools so that they can learn to read anything.”

The teachers have developed a “sound wall” that the students love. It breaks down the individual sounds in a highly visual and colorful way. It gives students an opportunity to “see” sounds and learn how to manipulate them to create words.

In addition to the reading teachers giving students the tools they need to be successful readers, Bush Elementary School is promoting reading in other creative ways too.

Bush School Reading teachers, Jackie Daigler, JoAnne Galbier and Julie Yochim, stand in front of their “sound wall.”

“Every day as I’m walking the building, or as teachers alert me, I look for students who are ‘caught reading’ and take a quick video clip,” said Mrs. Benson. “They are featured on the following day’s announcements with a shout out. I’ve even had a parent send in a clip of a kindergarten student reading at home to be featured on the announcements.”

The school has also created”March Picture Book Madness.” Teachers nominate picture books across the building. They started with 16 books. Each week, the school does a “read off” between two books and the winner moves forward. Each classroom votes after reading or listening to the picture book and the winner is determined. Teachers can decide whether to do read alouds, independent reading, partner reading or whatever interests their students. Teachers can also do activities with the books or re-read them independently after hearing them. Bush School has invited guest readers to read a few books in the announcements.

Bush School’s FACE (Family & Community Engagement) Committee has begun looking at ways to engage families and the community in their school-wide reading goals. Second grade teacher, Nichole Mason, brought a themed-reading idea to the committee and showed them the Wishtree book by Katherine Applegate. Mrs. Benson mentioned that her daughter’s former elementary school has participated in an “all school” read along where everyone reads the same book at the same time. Bush School began looking into that program. Mrs. Benson shared the idea with the other JPS elementary schools and it has been turned into a one-district, one-book project for May with Wishtree as it has a Spanish version and a social/emotional learning connection. Stay tuned for more information on the elementary school book project!