Leslie Steele, the former principal of Cople Elementary, gave a presentation before the School Board, presenting what she called “The Westmoreland County Public Schools Literacy Vision.”

This “vision” is for students to be effective communicators who purposefully read, write, and speak across multiple disciplines. Students are to express ideas and knowledge through a variety of modalities. Students will

Photo: MMS

engage with high-quality texts and digital media to develop comprehension, active listening, and discussion skills. Students will be critical thinkers who identify problems, find solutions, and analyze outcomes in service of becoming productive and empathetic global citizens.

Steele listed the instructional materials utilized by the school division, starting with the K–5 instruction core material, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Into Reading. This is supplemented by UFLI’s Foundations at 4th and 5th grade along with EPS Megawords.

For grades 6 through 8, a web-based program called IXL ELA is utilized for supplemental material. If literacy is slipping, that is where Lexia CORE 5 (for grades K through 5) and Lexia PowerUp (grades 6 through 8) come in. There are also teachers in grades K through 8 who are trained in the Orton-Gillingham method, which is used to assist students, particularly those with dyslexia, via “a structured, multisensory approach.”

According to Steele, the Virginia Literacy Act also required teachers to go through professional development courses to “ensure that their instruction is aligned with the science of reading.” Steele went on to note that Westmoreland County Public Schools had been handling that facet of things well before the VLA was even conceived.

“We have three cohorts that have completed the LETRS training in addition to the VLP training that’s required by the Virginia Department of Education in the Literacy Act,” Steele commented. “All of our elementary principals, our middle school principal, and myself have completed LETRS for Admin, which is ongoing each year.”

Furthermore, teachers, whether they are old or new, take part in professional development courses, primarily via the VALUE series, which addresses a number of topics specific to the grade level. This year, 10 new teachers had to complete the Virginia Literacy Plan training.

For students, there are a number of assessment methods, from the aforementioned Lexia CORE 5 and PowerUp to growth assessments, as well as the Virginia Language & Literacy Screening System, which dictate which students receive reading plans.

There are plenty more tools in the kits of the teachers for making sure students’ literacy levels are up to snuff. A major part of all of this also revolves around getting parents involved, which is done through various things such as Back to School Night, family engagement nights, reading plan meetings, Read Across America, and more.

Have these efforts actually paid off? Well, if Steele’s highlights page is any indication, yes, they have.

For instance, two 5th-graders from Washington District Elementary placed in the top three of the Virginia Future Problem Solvers Creative Writing Competition. Three more students from Washington District Elementary—4th-graders—had their work submitted for the Virginia State Literacy Association “Writing Extravaganza.” Also, Montross Middle School earned a place on the VDOE Region 3 Leaderboard thanks to its achievements in reading.

“I do want to thank our teachers for all of this,” Steele stated. “They are pure professionals. They do hard work—it’s not always easy to implement a new curriculum and then make sure that we’re aligned with what the VLA has us doing.

“Our K–8 reading specialists are phenomenal. They have made sure our teachers have the support that they need and assisted with the reading plans, and I want to give a very special thank you to our teachers, our professionals, and our building administrators as well.”

Steele’s next report, which will include results of the literacy program, is slated to be brought before the School Board in July.