Helping Teachers, Helping Kids — Community Schools Provide Professional Development!

By Stephanie Rockich
Director of Elementary Learning
And Becky Eisinger Land
Partnership Manager

United Way of Salt Lake is pleased to partner with the University of Utah Reading Clinic (UURC) this year to deliver high-quality professional development to teachers in several Promise Partnership schools. The Reading Clinic worked with about a dozen aides at Guadalupe School last year, helping them teach reading to struggling students. This year, with a grant from United Way of Salt Lake, the Clinic expanded to support teachers and aides at Granger Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, and Granite Park Junior High.

Dr. Kathleen Brown, the Director of the University of Utah Reading Clinic, is excited about the Clinic’s partnership with United Way of Salt Lake:

“The UURC is proud to provide professional development in Reading Intervention to educators at Granger Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Guadalupe School, and Granite Park Junior High School. The primary vehicle for UURC’s training is a clinical practicum in which educators learn a research-based intervention model that addresses the needs of struggling readers. Educators choose from several options, including Tier I Text, Tier I Word Study, or Tier II Intervention Across Development (i.e., Early Steps, Next Steps, Higher Steps). Evidence supporting these models has been published in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and shows their efficacy for struggling readers from poverty backgrounds, including English Learners. Most importantly, the UURC works with educators in their own schools, with their own students, over one or more years and provides modeling, coaching, and mentoring. Educators report that this “hands-on, real-life” approach is the most valuable training they have ever received.”
Mr. Kim-Scott Miller, a 3rd grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary, is also seeing a change in his students:

“Dr. Brown’s sessions from the University of Utah are not only invigorating, but have brought a whole new light to the way I teach reading (and here I am, a 32 year veteran).  The results have been remarkable insomuch that each week when a reading test is administered, I observe the noted difference in my students’ results.