7 Keys to Literacy

As you may know, based on my first posting, the Greenburgh North Castle Union Free School District located in Westchester County, New York, a suburb of New York City, is comprised of three alternative Junior and Senior High Academies (grades 7-12) for students with disabilities and at-risk for academic failure. The referral sources are school district committees on special education (CSEs) and counties from New York State and surrounding states.

The first month of school has come and gone quickly. One of the three District goals centers on improving the literacy skills of our students. The “Seven Keys to Literacy” was selected to address this goal of improving reading comprehension skills and high stake tests results. The “Seven Keys to Literacy” are based on the “Seven Keys for Reading Comprehension” that feature researched based strategies correlated with improving reading comprehension. The “Seven Keys to Literacy” are as follows:

Create Mental Images: Good readers create a wide range of visual, auditory and other sensory images as they read, and they become emotionally involved with what they read.

Use Background Knowledge: Good readers use their relevant prior knowledge before, during and after reading to enhance their understanding of what they are reading.

Ask Questions: Good readers generate questions before, during and after reading to clarify meaning, make predictions and focus their attention on what’s important.

Make Inferences: Good readers use their prior knowledge and information from what they read to make predictions, seek answers to questions, draw conclusions and create interpretations that deepen their understanding of the text.

Determine the Most Important Ideas or Themes: Good readers identify key ideas or themes as they read and they can distinguish between important and unimportant information.

Synthesize Information: Good readers track their thinking as it evolves during reading, to get the overall meaning.

Use “Fix Up” Strategies: Good readers are aware of when they understand and when they don’t. If they have trouble understanding specific words, phrases or longer passages, they use a wide range of problem-solving strategies including skipping ahead, rereading, asking questions, using a dictionary and reading the passage aloud.

A Literacy Committee was developed in the 2009-2010 school year and is comprised of classroom teachers, reading teachers, curriculum specialists and administrators. The Committee members provided initial training at all three academies around the “Seven Keys to Literacy” during the last school year and more advanced training took place during the Superintendent’s Conference Days in September. Additional training will continue throughout this school year which will include workshops and in-class support.

The expectation is that the “Seven Keys to Literacy” will be integrated into each class across all subject areas in each of our three academies. All teachers will introduce and reinforce the “Seven Keys to Literacy” in a thoughtful and strategic manner as part of their lesson plans to improve the overall literacy skills and test results of our students.

I am pleased to report we are off to an excellent start and look forward to another rewarding school year. If you would like more information regarding GNC please go to our website (http://www.greenburghnorthcastleschools.com/). For referral information please contact Dr. Robin Levine at 914-964-5496 regarding day placements and for residential placement please contact either Jill Bergner, Director of Intake, at 914-693-3030 ext. 2037 or Karen Safris, Supervisor of Intake , at 914-949-0665 ext. 2301