One year into implementing an Early Literacy Grant, Canon City School District in Colorado is seeing significant growth for some of its lowest performing students. More importantly, by targeting students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade, they are closing the achievement gap early on.

The district is implementing the Seeing Stars® and Visualizing and Verbalizing® (V/V®) programs to address reading fluency and comprehension. Overall, nearly 120 students received targeted and intensive intervention in the programs. Symbol imagery, which correlates highly to overall reading ability, improved from the 13th to the 45th percentile, while reading comprehension improved from the 14th to the 34th percentile.

As a district, student achievement improved from Low Status to Normal Performance. “This is what a first year should look like,” commented Superintendent George Welsh, referencing the literacy grant and the strategic plan to comprehensively address literacy.

For more about this exciting project, click here to read a recent article on their student success.

Congratulations, Canon City Schools!