Schools and Districts

Improving Literacy Outcomes for Schools & Districts

We offer solutions to improve the quality and effectiveness of literacy instruction for all students. Our comprehensive evaluation and implementation services help build capacity and maximize growth opportunities.

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How It Works

We work with our partners and their stakeholders to understand factors that may contribute to low literacy performance within a school or district. Through those efforts, we customize a strategic plan that focuses on improving the quality of instruction, increasing teacher knowledge, building capacity, and improving culture. These plans may include more than one phase and are dependent upon several mitigating factors within a school or district.

Holistic Approach to Empower Teachers & Leaders

The Reading Center employs a three-tired, responsive approach—TRAIN, DEVELOP, SUSTAIN. The premise of this approach is to gradually release implementation support to ensure our partners can sustain improvement beyond our collaboration. As a result, schools and districts benefit from uniformed data management protocols, customized literacy training for teachers and leaders, systematic implementation and coaching frameworks, and ongoing collaboration between and among teachers and leaders regarding student achievement.

Train

Collect Data
Plan
Implement

Develop

Evaluate
Monitor
Reflect & Adjust

Sustain

Release
Monitor

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Our Services

Program Evaluation

We design and conduct Needs Assessments to determine factors that contribute to low literacy performance in schools and districts. Our assessments include but are not limited to curriculum reviews, surveys, data analyses, and formal and informal interviews.

Literacy Improvement Plan

We help design literacy plans aimed at improving literacy outcomes for ALL students. Our plans include training and development services for leaders and teachers with built-in implementation/coaching support. We use both trend data and performance data to measure the effectiveness of our services.

Professional Learning

We design and deliver professional learning workshops and training series focused on building literacy capacity among leaders and teachers. We use both trend and performance data to measure the effectiveness of our services.

Executive Leadership Literacy Coaching & Support

We provide executive literacy coaching and support to district-level and building-level leaders who are shifting cultural norms and literacy practices in general education and special education settings.

Curriculum Development

We design and develop literacy curricula to meet the needs of students and adults who demonstrate insufficient skills in one or more areas of literacy. (Ask us about our most recent pilot.)

Grant Writing Support

We provide grant writing support to schools, districts and organizations that need additional resources to provide sustainable, results-driven literacy instruction aimed to improve outcomes for students.

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Testimonials

“Our district partnered with Dr. DeWalt at a point when fewer than half of our students were demonstrating reading proficiency. To help us address this critical area of need, Dr. DeWalt worked alongside district and school staff to:

train teachers, school leaders, district leaders, and community members on highly effective reading instructional practices.
acquire high-quality curricular resources and programs to support evidence-based practices.
implement assessments and data protocols to monitor student progress, make instructional adjustments, and ensure student response to instruction; and
embed processes to scale and sustain the literacy work.

As a result of our partnership work with Dr. DeWalt, our students’ reading proficiency rates improved rapidly and dramatically.”

B. Cochran
Associate Superintendent
Curriculum & Instruction

“One of my best but hard to sell on BW teachers told me how thankful they were for you [Dr. DeWalt] coming to our school two years ago. She said many of our teachers including her needed that tough love to get real about literacy. She’s now one of our strongest teacher leaders and literacy advocates.”
P.C.
Elementary Principal

“I would describe the time I spent with Dr. DeWalt, and The Reading Center staff as informative, enlightening, and intentional! Dr. DeWalt was not only the consummate professional but lively and engaging in her delivery of content and was not afraid to do the difficult work during our district implementation. Her commitment to educational equity, building teacher capacity and, most of all, students and their families was bar none. She worked tirelessly to ensure that the teachers of our district were well-equipped to meet the needs of our students and most of all that she helped to change the trajectories of many students and their family’s lives.”

T. Williams
District Reading Coach

“The Reading Center changed the way that we see our children and teach our children. We learned effective ways to analyze data, build capacity in teachers and leaders and provide an equitable learning environment for ALL students regardless of their diverse learning needs. As we implemented these best practices with fidelity, we saw tremendous academic growth and closed achievement gaps within subgroups. I am a better educator and leader because of the expertise of Dr. Kendra N. DeWalt.

Thanks Dr. DeWalt and the Reading Center Team!!”

-C. Dobbs
Director of Title I

Looking for Something Else?

In addition to helping Schools & Districts, we also offer literacy improvement services to Students & Families and Community Partners. Learn more about Our Solutions in the section below.

Our Solutions