Even when we were unaware of it, we ended the school year with a celebration of books. Right before the world came to a stop, our Readers for the Future had been enthralled by our Reading Olympics.
During the last week of February they celebrated the grand opening of our month long event by singing their own hymn. Our Readers spent two weeks immersed into books and excited at the possibility of taking their newly met treasures home. Every Friday, students were eager to share the new adventures they had discovered while independently reading books to their family members with high school student volunteers.
In March, quarantine began but our team continued hard at work. At first we planned for the possibility of continuing services for our Readers for the Future, but we soon realized that less than half had internet access. In an effort to ensure that our students had access to books, we organized What’sApp chats and for the duration of the semester posted books in PDF format and designed corresponding activity sheets for them to continue practicing literacy skills in a fun way at home. 17% of parents remained active in the chat and expressed much gratitude towards our endeavour.
To continue fulfilling our mission of fostering effective literacy instruction for all students, especially those with a language based learning disability, our teachers set out to design, create and deliver continued education via webinars. At the core of MRC we believe that growing professionals is the most effective way to guarantee that student’s needs are met. A knowledgeable teacher who continues to learn helps all students flourish and translates into a greater impact. To that end a series of seven webinars on a variety of topics regarding literacy development (ex. dyslexia, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and writing) will be presented beginning May 22nd through June 26th. Our first two webinars have impacted a total of 155 educators on the island. We have been able to gather feedback from 60% of the participants of which 98% express that webinars have exceeded their expectations and that they would participate in additional professional development opportunities.
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MRC is proud to be recognized for our transparency and results!
Guidestar awarded us with the Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition offered as we are an organization who provides continuous metrics on our progress and results reflecting the changes we make on our island.
And we received the Top-Ranked Organization designation from GlobalGiving!
Books, Books, and More Books
Christmas brought books this year along with activities that inspire our students and prove that reading can be fun!
We had the honor of hosting two Puertorrican authors: Sandra Rivera and Armando Valdés. Sandra inspired our student to make an oath to safeguard our oceans while she shared her book Caballitos de mar se mudan de moral. While, Armando delighted our students with his coquí mascot from the story El Coquí de Boriquén con los Reyes a Belén. Students cherished receiving these books.
Our 2018- 2019 results speak for themselves!
During the 2018-19 school year, the Lectores Para un Futuro (LPF) intervention program generated significant longitudinal changes when comparing the progress of students in the program to those who did not receive intervention services provided by MRC.
Results portray substantial increases in all sub-tests of the Batería Woodcock-Muñoz III (WM) administered to first grade participants of LPF. All students increased their scores in the sub-tests by the end of the school year. However, those who went through the LPF intervention obtained significantly higher results than their peers without intervention (see Figure 1). LPF students either exceeded or neared grade-level expectations in 4 out of 5 subtests, while their peers who were not part of the intervention remained below grade level in all competencies. If you would like to learn more about our results please find MRC Summary of Findings 2018-19 pdf attached.
The 68 participating students at Readers for the Future are off to a great start this year!
Some of the fun activities included "De Mañana con Nuestros Autores" with 9 Puerto Rican children's book authors spending the morning reading and sharing activities with our students and our annual t-shirt design contest. All students and teachers received this year's t-shirt designed by one of our students. In his drawing, he portrayed how reading makes him feel.
Our work with students is not limited to teaching students to read, we help them expand their vocabulary along with their word knowledge and we instill in them life values such as responsibility while rewarding them for their resilience.
We believe in empowering not only our students but also their parents and classroom teachers by sharing best practices in literacy to reach more students and support them beyond our walls.
On December 6th we held a parent workshop: "Jugando con Palabras". Parents learned fun, dynamic games to help develop phonological skills with their children proving that Reading is FUN!
Thank you for helping to make Readers for the Future a reality for students like Anelis, a 2nd grader who could not read 4 months ago. Now, it's common to find her in our classroom at Llorens Torres Elementary School at 7:45am participating in morning chores and getting extra work done bright and early because in her words: "I want to learn to read and go to the university and earn more money like my mother."
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August was a busy month as we officially began the 2019-20 school year, and our teachers and assistants have been preparing two new classroom spaces in Escuela Elemental Luis Llorens Torres and Escuela Manuel Elzaburu y Vizcarrondo. (Including preparing our spaces for a potential hurricane! We are so grateful that we were lucky to be spared by the storm.) While school officially started August 12th, there have already been cancelled classes and half-days due to both the potential hurricane and a facility move for Esc. Elzaburu.
We have just completed our annual pre-assessment evaluations of students at Esc. Luis Llorens Torres. In two weeks 8 members of our team evaluated 58 first graders, 49 second graders, and 43 third graders for a total of 150 students. Of these students tested, 9 first graders, 8 second graders, and 4 third graders will receive small group reading intervention four times a week from MRC. Next week, we will conduct assessments at our second site where we aim to evaluate 78 students and impact 42 struggling readers. These assessments (using Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and Batería Woodcock Muñoz to measure reading and language skills) enable our teachers to identify the greatest areas of need and plan their interventions to develop individualized lesson plans for the 63 students we will serve during the school year. In addition, the control groups of these students’ peers allow us to measure and analyze our progress throughout the year.
In addition, our staff participated in community outreach with an orientation session for parents to explain our program and how they can support reading at home.
The attached newsletter highlights the significant gains our students made during the 2018-19 school year. In January 2020, we will report on our students’ first semester results. Our goals are to continue to improve their reading and comprehension levels and ensure that these struggling students enter third grade as proficient readers. Your donations are essential to this effort; thank you for your continued support of the Readers for the Future.
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