Indian River is receiving more than $200,000 dollars to support its reading and literacy programs. Delaware’s Department of Education says it’s part of the state’s commitment to ensure students become proficient readers by the end of Grade 3.
Indian River is in its third year of implementing a new reading program, switching from balanced literacy which uses a context clues focused approach to an approach focused on semantics and phonics, often called structured literacy.
Kelly Dorman is the district’s Director of Elementary Education.
“So now that we’re into our third year, we felt this was the year to connect the dots for our teachers, to give them deeper knowledge into the science of reading and connect it to our current reading program.” she told DPM.
The program is one of the school districts ways to introduce evidence-based learning models by the 2027-28 school year, as required by Senate Bill 4.
Indian River Elementary English Language Arts literacy specialist Dr. Marisa Hockman says the grant enables the school to provide new training opportunities to teachers to bring them up to speed with the new instruction standards.
“They are the ones who know their students the best, who know their craft and their classrooms the best. My goal is really to help support and give them the tools that they need to continue to enhance instruction in the ways that they are best equipped to do.” she said.
IRSD says that this grant will fund three main methods of training, the first being Early Literacy Leadership Academy training. Indian River says this will provide classroom-level training for school-based leadership teams.
"This is something we've already participated in at the state level," said Dorman. "We thought this was a great opportunity to have this presented to school teams right within the district so that we can continue to build the knowledge of both our school leaders and our teachers"
Grant funding will also facilitate AIM literacy training for 40 educators in the district, according to IRSD. The Pennsylvania based AIM Institute for Literacy and Research's Pathways to Proficient Reading course was prioritized in the Bridge to Practice grant program.
Finally, all IRSD says that all teachers, Pre-K through 3rd grade, will participate in their “Unlocking Literacy: Science of Reading in Action for ALL,” learning series.
"I'm really excited about it." said Hockman. "I've been able to take the learning I've done over the last three years on the Science of Reading, through organizations like AIM... with my lense also in the learning I've done around how the science of reading applies to multi-lingual learners, it's really allowed me to think about how it applies to all of our learners."
Hockman says the series will be 4 full-day sessions, which she says will allow teachers more time to learn how to apply Science of Reading principals into their already-in-play curriculum.
DOE awarded 7.2 million dollars to a total of 25 grantees through the Bridge to Practice program, following Governor Meyer’s literacy emergency declaration last year.
