Thanks to scholarship support from IDA NorCal, K-3 teachers at San Francisco Unified School District’s Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, a Chinese language immersion program, are returning to the classroom with skills acquired this summer through an online structured literacy training.
The synchronous 30-hour program offered through the Institute for Multisensory Education (IMSE) is among the many structured literacy trainings accredited by The International Dyslexia Association. That meant participating teachers were eligible to receive partial scholarship support through IDA NorCal. The school’s parent association funded the balance of the tuition costs.
Former Assistant Principal Tara Twedt spearheaded the training at Alice Fong Yu. In a foreign language immersion program “every minute of our one-hour daily English language instruction has to count,” she said. SFUSD uses balanced literacy (Fountas & Pinnell) as its formal Language Arts program, but Twedt is one of many educators seeking to reduce the need for special education services by augmenting kids’ learning with structured literacy.
“It fits with the district’s goal of deeper learning for students by providing deeper learning for professionals,” said Twedt. For example, she said, knowledge of morphology gives general classroom teachers the tools to answer students’ questions about why words are spelled a certain way.
Alice Fong Yu (AFY) is following the lead of another SFUSD school, Miraloma Elementary, whose K-3 teachers had previously taken the same training. Social workers at the two schools had a serendipitous conversation about how students’ struggles with reading can become a mental health issue. When the AFY social worker heard about the progress staff had seen at Miraloma, she passed the info along to Vice Principal Twedt, who reached out to Miraloma learning specialist Beth Lucey for more information. Lucey, an IDA Nor Cal board member, put it succinctly. “There was no longer a wait list for my services after our teachers were trained,” said Lucey. And there were no non-readers last year at the end of first grade. All students entering second grade were able to read, even if not at grade level.”
Seeding Awareness
The IDA NorCal scholarship program is designed to seed awareness that structured literacy works. “We want to be an impetus for change,” said Lisa Parnello, scholarship committee co-chair. “We aim for a multiplier effect with our scholarship program, and training classroom teachers is a way to reach a large number of students. Even having a few teachers trained at a school can make a big impact as they share their tools with others.”
The IMSE program was particularly attractive to both Alice Fong Yu and Miraloma educators because they could take the training independently when it best fits with their summer schedules. However, a number of other accredited programs also offer online options. The complete list of IDA approved programs is here and is updated regularly.
The branch was able to provide scholarship support for a larger number of teachers this year thanks to a generous bequest from the estate of a family that had established a scholarship in honor of their late son, Tyler Gebhardt. Donations of any size to the IDA NorCal Teacher Training Scholarship Fund are always welcome and can be made here.
–Leslie Lingaas Woodward