Published on: Thursday, October 06, 2011

By Alexis A. Goring

A program that promises to close the achievement gap has arrived at Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School and is already making a difference in the lives of children.

“Our mission with Success for All is to be able to have more students reading on grade level at all grade levels,” Principal Amy Stout said. “And for those students that are proficient, we want to focus on giving them more tools to be able to break down the text and understand what it is they’re being asked to do.”

Stout first heard of Success for All through an email and since learning about it, she began doing research online and found other schools within the state that were using the program and one of those schools was Grasonville Elementary School.

“Eighteen staff members and I took a road trip and observed that elementary school from the beginning of their day so we could observe their whole reading block with SFA,” Stout said. “Grasonville has been using Success for All now for over 17 years, and they are the head Title I school in their county. The majority of their school is reading on or above grade level, and that to me is phenomenal.”

According to Successforall.org, “Success for All has been found to increase reading achievement, cut the achievement gap between African Americans, Hispanic, and white students, and prepare teachers to support the needs of English learners.”

Parents of students are already singing the praises of this program.

“This program is very helpful for the children because every day they practice reading,” said Estela Bonilla, parent of two students who are in fourth and fifth grades. “Every day, my daughter tells me, ‘Mommy, come here, help me to read! We can read together!’ I know my children are improving in reading.”

Kim Marlin works as the Point Coach from Success for All for Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School and is passionate about her work.

“Our job here is to help teachers improve student achievement,” Marlin said. “We work with teachers to help them improve the student achievement in reading and the way we do that is by looking at their data and coaching them, getting in the classroom, watching their class, talking to them and interacting with them about what’s going well and what we feel needs improvement.”

Marlin recognizes the need and importance of parent involvement in this process.

“A lot of time, students go home and they don’t talk about what they learned in school with their families or if they do, it’s a very superficial conversation,” Marlin said. “We’re asking that parents are so involved that they know what should be expected of their children because the more conversation and oral language development children have, the further they’re going to go in school and we know that by the research.”

“I am a teacher at heart,” Stout said. “And to see students in our very high ESOL population who would not like to speak or share their ideas, speaking and communicating in their teams gives me goose bumps because it’s empowering them. If they see that personal success, they will feel confident in themselves to know that they can achieve so then they take more risks.”

Success for All isn’t limiting their reach to students in Langley Park as they are aspiring to have a presence in 1,000 more schools nationwide.

Meanwhile, their presence at Langley Park-McCormick is proving to be a positive and rewarding experience for both the students and the teachers.

“Anytime you do something new there’s a little uncertainty,” said Maureen Grayzeck, Early Literacy Coach. “But you can overcome it if you cooperate and work together, and that’s what we’ve been doing!”