WLC summer program yields reading growth in 4 schools

Several reading-specific metrics improved in 4 WLC schools this summer. (Photo from iStock Getty Images)

A coalition of city of Wilmington elementary schools can tout growth in reading over the summer.

In the Wilmington Learning Collaborative ’s monthly meeting Tuesday night, Executive Director Laura Burgos presented the academic progress as a result of summer programming.

The group contracted Reading Assist , a group contracted by the WLC that focuses on improving literacy rates, to help tutor students.

“Tutors served 248 students across four WLC sites, with average scores increasing in the following areas: phoneme, segmentation, fluency, nonsense word fluency, clear letter sounds and whole words read,” Burgos said, adding that “a lot more data” from the effort will be collected and revealed at the group’s next meeting in September.

Here’s what those metrics mean:

• Phoneme: the specific sounds that each letter emits, essentially building blocks of spoken language.
• Segmentation: the specific sounds that make up a full word from start to finish.
• Fluency: being able to smoothly and accurately read words.
• Nonsense word fluency: understanding the phonetics of words that don’t exist. For example, “dizboop” is not a word, but a literate person should be able to sound it out.
• Clear letter sounds: grasping the pronunciation of each letter sound clearly and distinctly without adding additional sounds to the end.
• Whole words read: reading by sight and using memory through repeat exposure to the written form of a word paired.

The collaborative, which receives millions in state dollars, was created in November 2022 and involves nine elementary schools across Christina , Brandywine and Red Clay Consolidated school districts.

In addition to raising academic performance for city students, its goal is to provide better social outcomes and breakdown barriers with new programs, which are designed in part with input from parents, teachers and the community.

Burgos highlighted the students at Pulaski and Stubbs, both in the Christina School District, who she said had the largest gains overall.

It is unclear what other two schools were in this initiative, and efforts to reach WLC leaders to get the names of them Wednesday morning were unsuccessful.

Reading improvement

Burgos then spoke about the importance of remitting chronic absenteeism, which is defined as a student missing 10% or more of the school days in a single year.

“We know that the more we can increase on-track attendance, the more our students will progress academically,” she said.

Education experts, in Delaware and nationally, have consistently concluded what seems to be an obvious fact – it’s hard for students to learn and achieve when they aren’t in school and aren’t in the classroom.

The learning collaborative has been working with its district and the Delaware Department of Education partners, and it completed its second session on chronic absenteeism, insights and innovation.

“This week, we focused on challenging myths around attendance and preparing for real time stakeholder interviews,” Burgos said.

In the coming weeks, the group will meet with parents and other community members to better understand the barriers to attendance and potential solutions.

“Our goal is to be ready to pilot a response strategy this winter,” Burgos said.

The Wilmington Learning Collaborative will also introduce Wellness Wednesdays next month.

Its objective is to support educator well-being, foster community, promote healthy lifestyles and enhance mental health.

The days will include healthy plant-based food and smoothies/juices, meditation and breathing exercises, informal sessions where teachers can socialize and exchange classroom ideas and more.

Wellness Wednesday’s debut date and location has yet to be announced.

The collaborative’s next meeting is Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. Watch it here .