Creating Collaborative Literacy Teams To Increase Reading Achievement In Urban Settings

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed example of effective professional development for teachers that resulted in positive changes to the effectiveness of the school’s reading program. This study describes the results of an intervention school-wide program that was conducted in a large urban school with a majority of minority students whose families were below the poverty line.   With the implementation of continuous professional development of exemplary literacy instruction, dramatic improvement in reading achievement occurred. The article depicts how poorly students performed on state exams and details the multiple strategies developed and used by the authors - analyzing test results, realigning the curriculum, coaching, after school tutoring, and the implementation of a nightly home reading program, all of which were closely monitored by these researchers. This model can be replicated anywhere because it is achievable without any additional cost to the participating schools.