Bringing Student and Teacher Success to Scale

Background

Whitelaw Reid Academy is a middle school with 180 students from grade 6 through 8. The school serves a high poverty community in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. The school faced the challenge many New York City schools were facing in that the majority of entering 6th graders were reading well below grade level. The principal saw an urgent need to put in place professional learning and systemic support for her teachers to ensure all students leave middle schools with the literacy skills they need to succeed in high school.

Goals for the Work

The Generation Ready consultant worked with the principal to establish the following literacy goals:

• As a Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) school, the work focused on the integration of the work from the five pillars into ELA classrooms.
• To support the goals, teachers were provided with one-to-one and small group coaching support, including mentoring with planning and building curriculum and activities, in-class support, and the development of a range of materials, artifacts, and tools. It was tailored to the needs identified through discussions with the Administration and teachers.

Outcomes of the Work

The partnership resulted in:

• Development of a series of lessons and assessments for the strategic reading group, to support students at risk students
• Modifications to the Expeditionary Learning Curriculum, to meet the specific learning needs of the students, to ensure these are being addressed through the curriculum.
• Development of a process to analyze tasks and to match the strategies and approaches needed for differentiation.
• Development of a website to support planning, assessment, strategies and specific task support for developing reading and comprehension.
• Development of a toolbox of activities, structures, and routines in ELA classrooms to support the differentiation.