- Academic success at Canopy Oaks Elementary School is being attributed to their new "Lit Club" initiative. Students are divided into tiered reading groups for 30 minutes every day.
- The goal is to better prepare students for 4th grade when they have to apply reading skills independently. Canopy Oaks has previously seen a 12% drop in reading proficiency between 3rd and 4th grade.
- Watch the video to find out how "Lit Club" is confronting these numbers and boosting reading fluency in the classroom.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
A focus on reading fluency at Canopy Oaks Elementary School is now expanding. We're looking at the success they've had with a program to get kids reading more, earlier, and faster.
It's called Lit Club, a daily, 30-minute window where Canopy Oaks students divide into groups based on their reading level.
The goal is to move up to the top two groups, Those reading above grade level.
"I think it's made me a better reader because we read books every day," said Claudia Colangelo, a third-grade student at Canopy Oaks Elementary. "I know more words because of it."
My favorite ones are Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and those are the only ones I really read," said another student, Muhanad Aboughsh, describing the books he's been inspired to read because of Lit Club.
The program's two lowest groups once had around 30 kids. Now they have fewer than 10.
"I've seen kids that I had at the beginning of the year that are now above grade level and knowing when I had them back in September they were well below grade level," said third-grade teacher, Lauren Colangelo.
The school just introduced the club into kindergarten and first grade, after tracking second and third-grade development.
"Keep students practicing and move students even further than what they already are," said Principal Clayton Cloud, describing one of the goals of the program.
Cloud said the program is to ensure students are prepared for fourth grade. That is when they are expected to apply their reading skills on their own, building more advance skills.
"They go from just learning why the author is telling the story, or even who's telling the story, to now are they persuading, are they informing, are they giving directions," said Cloud.
Educators said leveling up is often a huge hurdle.
"If they're reading word by word, there's no way they're going to be able to take those skills and apply them to fourth grade, on a four-grade level text," said Colangelo.
Previous data at Canopy Oaks has shown a 12% drop in proficiency between third and fourth-grade.
Lit Club is one of the ways the school is confronting these numbers, working to solidify education fundamentals before fourth grade.
"I never want to send a student on to the next grade and set them up for failure," said Colangelo.
When you get to the end of the year what sort of fundamentals do you need them to have so they can begin applying them in 4th grade?
"We want them to fully understand all the reasons, all the ways passages are organized, is it cause and effect, is it compare and contrast, looking for some of the key words," said Colangelo, adding students are taking more ownership of their reading success. They want to share with their friends when they reach their goals.
"Everybody cheers everybody on, everybody gets excited when somebody levels up which is not typical in today's children, usually it's a me, me, me mentality," said Colangelo.
Canopy Oaks has state testing in May to decide its Florida Department of Education School Grade. Last year, the school scraped a C. This year, educators say the goal is a B grade.
Principal Cloud said the students have a couple of progress monitoring tests in between and this week, staff will adjust some groups to keep students challenged and moving forward.
Want to see more local news? Visit the WTXL ABC 27 Website.
Stay in touch with us anywhere, anytime.
