After the implementation of Open Court Reading in 2000, our API went up 130 points in only one year. By 2008, our API was 813, up 277 points over all. I was recently looking at some data on our Grade 5 students and saw that no one (Special Education included) tested Far Below Basic. Reading has taken on such a differnt meaning at Mary Covillaud. We are constantly looking at inference and comprehension. I only can thank Open Court Reading for our achievement. This reading program is the foundation of the success at our school.

SRA has gone beyond the call of duty in Mobile with its support in the schools and the district. The training we received this summer was excellent.

The years that I go to training, I do a better job. Professional development is really crucial. We receive a lot of support in teaching the program.

Professional development is absolutely important because everybody doesn’t always get it the first time. It’s just like the kids: We know kids learn differently. Well, adults learn differently too. And so you have to approach the adults the same way with the training. You consistently have to train. We have coaches in. We go to conferences. We go to workshops. We go as a staff most of the time so that we can consistently get training. And at every training, I pick up another key to make myself better.

We worked through professional development throughout the year. We know the value of professional development and see it as a very important component of a reading program. We’ve been able to train all of our teachers and then we have the in-school consultant support at the point of need. We think that is very valuable.

The professional development serves as support for our teachers and improves the delivery of the program and the understanding of the teaching methods.

The teachers felt the online Teacher Resource Library (Professional Development videos) was very worthwhile. They learned a great deal from watching the videos of model teachers in the classroom.