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Spotlight on Literacy Program of Santa Cruz Gardens Elementary School
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The formal name for this program is "English Learning for Success". The program helps intermediate English learners improve their English so they can access classroom instruction and better express themselves academically.
How Does this Program Work?
 The English teacher takes a very small group of students - 6-8 - in grades 2 through 5 and uses a variety of activities to help them improve their English skills. The focus is on the more academic English that could help these children succeed in the regular classroom.
The program uses a variety of techniques including:
- Read Naturally helps the kids develop a fluent style of reading in English. It also helps with comprehension.
- SIPPS - a technique to learn sound correlations - which also improves spelling.
- Guided Reading helps children decode and comprehend literature. Vocabulary is improved as well.
- Step Up to Writing provides a detailed scaffold to help students organize their thoughts into paragraphs and essays.
- Accelerated Math is used with small groups from 4th grade to develop a math vocabulary.
- Editing groups are used to help students complete class assigned writing.
What does our Grant Provide?
The Women in Philanthropy grant pays for the Literacy program teacher at Santa Cruz Gardens. Without our support, this program would not exist.
How Successful is the Program?
The administrators of the program have certain expectations on how the children will advance in their reading and writing skills. From data collected from the end of 2007-2008 school year
- We expected that 90% of the students would increase two levels on the DRA (ed. note: a reading measurement). ...[T]his year 100% of our students only met but exceeded this goal
But statistics don't tell the whole story. Every child has a  unique success story. Those of us who attended the December breakfasts in 2007 and 2008 had a chance to hear essays from two different children -- children who could not have expressed themselves in English so fluently before going through this program.
During the Allocations process, the Allocations panel heard from the mother of a young girl who is achieving great success in school. The mother told the panel that she attributes this success to her daughter's increased ability to read and write in English.
This is the kind of success that our Women in Philanthropy grant makes possilble.
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