Dive Brief:

• The majority of students at Chemawa Middle School in Riverside, CA, didn’t meet grade level standards on recent assessments, with many reading two or more grades below level.
• To address that concern, the school developed a plan where writing skills were emphasized across multiple classes, Principle Raúl Ayala writes for eSchoolNews.
• There were four areas of focus in the new program, which launched in the fall — reading, writing, speaking and listening — and the goal is for students to improve their scores by at least one point on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 being not proficient and 6 considered college-ready.

Dive Insight:

Literacy goals — making sure students are proficient in their ability to read and write at grade level — are crucial benchmarks for schools. Administrators have these top-of-mind when designing curriculum for students, particularly as they build literacy action plans. While literacy fits neatly into English and social studies classes, curriculum designers can also build a framework that works literacy goals into all subjects.

All educators, no matter their subject area, can see themselves as teachers of literacy. This “all hands on deck” approach — where every child is encouraged to meet literacy goals throughout their school day — can bring dramatic results, with upticks in reading, language skills and math abilities, as Laurens School District 55 in South Carolina discovered. When educators — from teachers to administrators — work together across the curriculum, students benefit.