The goal of this project is to accelerate early literacy achievement by providing Kindergarten and First Grade students with access to high-interest, differentiated Scholastic leveled readers. By integrating these texts into daily small-group guided reading instruction and independent practice, the project aims to ensure that at least 85% of participating students meet or exceed grade-level reading benchmarks by the end of the academic year.
During daily literacy centers, the teacher conducts 15-to-20-minute small-group sessions using the leveled readers. Lessons focus on explicit phonics application, vocabulary development, decoding strategies, and guided comprehension discussions before, during, and after reading.
Differentiated text levels allow students to apply phonics strategies and sight word knowledge at their precise instructional levels, leading to faster growth in reading fluency, decoding accuracy, and vocabulary acquisition.
Funding from this grant will be used exclusively to purchase targeted Scholastic Leveled Reader classroom sets and take-home book collections for early literacy instruction. Many early elementary classrooms lack a sufficient quantity and variety of leveled texts needed to support diverse reading abilities. Grant funds will directly address this gap by acquiring high-interest, phonics-aligned, and leveled fiction and non-fiction books spanning guided reading levels A through I. These materials will serve as the core resource for daily small-group guided reading instruction, independent literacy centers, and home-school reading partnerships.
