By Meeting Each Student “Where They Are” and Taking a Team Approach to Learning, Kindergarteners’ Reading Ability Has Markedly Improved
Fostering a love of reading goes hand in hand with ensuring students are taught with the best methods to become fluent readers.
At Arizona Charter Academy these best practices start from Day One.
“Our kindergarten students are growing, and we have the numbers to prove it,” said Michelle Miller Instructional Coach at ACA.
“After diving into the data, we really wanted to make sure our kinder students had the skills to be successful readers later on,” Miller said, adding that she credits the ACA administration and highly trained kinder teaching staff with their ability to meet each student where they are as they are for this improvement in reading scores, noting that they value team effort and collaboration.
“Our results do not come in isolation, and our team of teachers, admin and intervention teachers have really encompassed what it means to work as a team. We shifted our focus in the 2022-2023 school year as a team and created school wide goals. We stuck to our goals and adjusted our plans as the data continued to shine.”
As Heather Henderson, Chief Academic Officer noted, the team approach to learning has definitely contributed to the success of the kindergarten reading program.
“Through the use of data and tried and true strategies that work for all kids, teachers are working with both instructional coaches and administrators to set students up for future academic success,” Henderson said.
Miller said she and the entire kindergarten team at ACA, are thrilled with the tangible results in reading abilities, as well as how this skill will bode well for the students in the future.
“We know that getting kindergarten students in the highly proficient range will increase the student's chances of becoming fluent independent readers that are reading high level text by third grade,” she said.
As Melissa Montenegro, Director of Enrollment at ACA noted, the school now has five kindergarten classes led by five outstanding teachers. The school is now enrolling for the 2024-2025 school year, and parents are welcome to submit applications.
“We offer one on one tours of the campus for any families interested in learning more, we take them around to the kinder classrooms and show them what a daily schedule for an ACA kindergartener looks like,” Montenegro said.
Any family that enrolls in ACA’s Kindergarten program will receive a free Kindergarten Readiness Kit.
“These kits were curated by our very own ACA Master Teachers full of helpful worksheets and activities parents can do at home to help prepare their child for Kindergarten. In addition, it grants parents access to a whole series of short video tutorials done by our very own Kinder teachers on topics like building motor skills and diving into phonemic awareness at home with easy activities,” Montenegro said.
