Cross County School District receives large literacy and reading grant

The Cross County School District receive a $60,000 soar grant from the Arkansas Department of Education.

The grant will provide training and reading instructional methods for teachers to incorporate into the classroom.

“One of those specific trainings will be the structures training, and that is a very specific reading instruction model to implement in the classroom,” says Cross County High School Principal Stephen Prince. “It’s one of those approved models we use with our Dyslexia students currently. Year two, we will move to purchase an evidence and research-based reading instruction reading program.”

They will use the grant to fund structures training for their middle and high school teachers as they currently only have a few certified dyslexia instructors.

Prince says teachers will be able to incorporate the training and programs into their lesson plans to benefit all students.

He hopes this will help close literacy gaps among students as well as preparing them for adulthood.

“This is a good model not only for dyslexia students but also students in the regular classroom who might just be slow readers. We want them to be better readers because that is a skill that spans across all content areas in school. It’s also a skill that they need to be proficient in so that they can apply that in the real world once they get out of school,” he says.

Prince says this isn’t only a benefit and help for students, but teacher as well.

“That’s also gonna help us develop strategies that we can support teachers in to embed in the classrooms,” says Prince. “All of us, as the leadership team, will be able to support the teachers very specifically and strategically on those components of that reading instruction.”

Teachers will begin training for the structure program next summer.

Prince says they have already started working with publishing companies to purchase books and educational programs for students.