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You already know that REAP trains teachers in Structured Literacy. Why do we do it? Because most teachers are never taught how to teach the hundreds of thousands of children who struggle with reading. Without the right kind of reading instruction, many of these students will continue to struggle with school, and will struggle to find a good job because they never become proficient readers.

It’s great to train experience teachers, but it would be even better for teachers to have this crucial training before they take on a classroom of their own. REAP is attacking this problem at the source by teaming with Georgia College & State University in a ground-breaking program to train students in Structured Literacy before they leave college.

This winter REAP’s Literacy Leaders taught the very first cohort of 100 pre-service teachers—juniors and seniors—at Georgia College. The students enjoyed learning about sound production, sounds, deck drills, closed and open syllables, the Alphabet King, and more. One student reported that she has already shared her knowledge with her host teacher, who implemented the new content into her classroom teaching. The student also had a job interview where they asked her about skills that their current teachers might benefit from. She was very excited to talk about her REAP training. The students received a second round of training this spring, including REAP’s first-ever online training session thanks to the COVID-19 shutdown.

REAP plans to expand the Georgia College training in 2020 and 2021 to include rising juniors. We also plan to develop a Faculty Workshop on the science of reading. REAP would administer the workshop and provide faculty all the resources, including the presentation, and would encourage faculty to use it in their curriculum.

REAP needs your help to continue this training
REAP is very excited about working with pre-service teachers. Imagine if every teacher was equipped from Day 1 with the skills to effectively teach reading! REAP provided part of the funding for this innovative program. As a nonprofit organization, we need your help providing funding for more Structured Literacy training programs for current and future teachers. We look forward to a day when all teachers arrive at their first classroom confident that they can transform struggling readers into successful learners!

Donate today!

REAP’s very first online training!
Amidst the chaos of the past six weeks, REAP has been planning how to move forward even though we can’t work with teachers and students in person. COVID-19 arrived just as we were about to complete our pre-service teacher training at Georgia College.

Our amazing Literacy Leaders worked feverishly to develop and present REAP’s first-ever online virtual training session in April, with the students attending remotely from home. We’re thrilled that these young women and men will be armed with knowledge and skills to successfully teach reading and assist struggling readers.

REAP’s dedicated team jumped into action to respond to the COVID challenge, seeking solutions to keep our training on track. This led to some very positive outcomes:

More online resources
We created and published more video and online support for the teachers we’ve already trained.

Online training components
We created new virtual learning sessions for the components of our program that can be successful online.

Planning to support at-risk students
We developed a plan for our most at-risk schools to support the inevitable and unplanned slide their struggling readers will face.We’re partnering with administrators and instructional coaches to support these children while providing a deeper learning opportunity for their EIP/Intervention and SPED teachers.

Although we really, really miss working with teachers and kids, we’re excited about the potential for technology to expand our reach. It will enable us to provide greater resources to metro Atlanta and, ultimately, to begin training teachers throughout Georgia.

With all the recent school closings, REAP Literacy Leader, Lisa Glickman (aka Lisa the Learning Lady), has put together a handy list of fun activities you can do with kids to help continue the learning when school is out. Her list includes fine motor activities, working with letters and sounds, phonemic and phonological awareness activities, and more.

Click here for Lisa’s List

This article by Holly Korby illuminates how difficult reading can be. This excerpt sums up the theme well, In Proust and the Squid, Wolf writes that if she were given five minutes with all teachers and parents everywhere, she’d want them most to know that “learning to read, like Red Sox baseball, is a wonderful thing that can go wrong for any number of reasons.” For students accused of being stubborn or not working to their potential, often neither is true: Children with dyslexia need immediate and intensive intervention to connect the pieces of the reading circuit.

Read the whole article here

The voices of dyslexia awareness groups are being heard across America. Parents and teachers alike know that the term dyslexia is often avoided or even ignored. Last week the U.S. Department of Education released guidance stating that it’s okay to use the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. While this is merely a statement as it relates to IDEA, it’s a start.