Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
Rupert Elementary
Innovation Zone: For the Love of Reading
Principal: Leatha G. Williams
Core Team Members:
1. Tammy Robinson, Third Grade
2. Lisa Witt, Special Education
3. Cynthia McCutcheon, Parent & Parent Involvement Coordinator Title I
4. Nicole Wolfe: Title I Reading Specialist
5. Michael Vincent: Guidance Counselor
6. Logan Foley: Student Government President
7. Darrick Morris: Service Personnel Representative
8. Vicky Cline: County Office Representative, Director of Technology
Rupert Elementary
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
B. Application Information:
Entity Applying for Innovation Zone Designation
__X___School
______Department or Subdivision of School
______Coalition of Schools (fill out multiple listings below)
______Higher Education Institution
Entity Applying for Innovation Zone Designation
Name of Entity Applying: Rupert Elementary School
County: Greenbrier County School
Superintendent: John Curry
Principal: Leatha G. Williams
Number of Professional Personnel: 21.5
Service Personal Personnel: 10
Application Deadline: December 15, 2010
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
C. Narratives for the Innovation Zone Application:
Phase I Planning and Project Design
a. Creative Vision for the Project:
Rupert Elementary is proud of the commitment of our staff to utilizing student
achievement data to continually improve instruction. Upon return of our 2009-2010
WESTEST2 RLA score, we noticed a trend toward stagnation which could lead to
decline, and were looking for ways to increase student performance in reading. Intensive
research into innovative concepts in reading instruction and review of previous staff
development information has lead to a universal consensus within our staff that our
current core reading program is not effective, and that a new programmatic application
can help us achieve our desired goals. To this end, our core development team of teachers
and support staff established a “wish list” of what our vision of Reading Instruction
would look like with no barriers to implementation:
1. We want to increase student ownership of learning by involving students in the
process and creating a partnership within the classroom culture. This partnership
would engage students through cooperative activities and holistic assessments, while
at the same time ensuring a focus on reading and writing skills as outlined in the 21st
Century Content Standards and Objectives (CSOs).
2. We want our reading program to center around research-based instructional,
curricular and assessment practices that would maintain the integrity of our Response
to Intervention Model, while incorporating award-winning novels into our core
practices as the primary instructional materials . We wanted these trade books to
contain all genres and structures of text including anthologies.
3. We want our school curriculum to completely revolve around the 21st Century CSOs
with a scaffolding of skills based on student instructional needs, not necessarily grade
level identification or a series of core program stories. Our teachers want to focus
more on reading skills with less dependence on textbook driven strategies such as
worksheets which focus on content within individual stories and provide no outlet for
student creativity or differentiating instruction to meet the needs of different student
learning modalities.
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
4. In order to accomplish these goals, our staff has embraced the idea of engaging a
program facilitator to assist us in implementing this approach, and learning to
effectively work as a larger, inter-grade level team.
5. We need to create understanding and support for reading within the school
community. To experience success in our “For the Love of Reading” innovation zone,
all members of the educational community must have an understanding of the project.
Rupert Elementary will do a kick off night for parents prior to school ending in the
2010-2011 school year as well as two additional “For the Love of Reading” activities
for the 2011-2012 school year. These nights will be designed to inform parents,
community members and school board employees and representatives about reading
instruction at Rupert Elementary.
Current Practices and Supporting Data:
Rupert Elementary staff already utilizes a balanced approach to assessment by
customizing classroom assessment to align with classroom instruction rather than
utilizing textbook assessments, which allows them to use assessments as learning tools
for the students throughout the year. Other assessment practices include quarterly
benchmark assessments utilizing Acuity as well as WV Writes. The staff at Rupert
Elementary also integrates technology into assessment practices through small group
computer work stations for the Acuity instructional resources as well as the use of
Student Responders. Also, at the beginning of each school year, 3rd through 5th grade
teachers and specialists including the Speech Therapist, Special Education, Guidance
Counselor, Title I Reading and Interventionists meet for at least two days to disaggregate
student achievement data as disseminated through WESTEST2 results. This data is
disaggregated into the fields of student performance in each test area, item analysis
proficiency, classroom proficiency, grade level proficiency, at-risk student list and ten
point student improvement group lists for each grade level.
We are then able to determine what we did well and what we need to improve
upon, and make decisions on how to adjust our curriculum maps and tailor them to fill in
the gaps in our instructional, assessment and curriculum approaches. We discuss which
skills will be targeted and what strategies will be used. While the primary purpose of
these meetings is analysis of WESTEST2, other data that will eventually be added to
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
these goals and objectives are SAT meeting information, disciplinary information,
attendance records and family dynamics. Our student achievement data for each student
starts in Kindergarten with the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
Assessment (DIBELS) and the Informal Math Assessment (IMA) results from the Teach
21 site.
When data from the 2009-2010 WESTEST2 results was broken down by grade
level using the improvement chart provided by the WV Department of Education,
45.16% of all 3rd graders were proficient in RLA, 50% for students with disabilities, and
38.46% of Low Socioeconomic Students. Fourth grade demonstrated proficiency with
63.63% of all students, 50% of students with disabilities, and 64% of the Low SES.
Fifth grade showed that 59.26% of the all student group was proficient in RLA with a 0%
of student with disabilities were proficient with only one student tested, and 56.25% of
Low SES.
While these numbers could be considered acceptable when compared to the
county and statewide level performance indicators, we at Rupert Elementary feel we can
and must do better. Consider the staggering statistics from the most recent U.S. Census
Bureau data available:

32.3% of one and two-parent families in the Rupert community live below the
poverty level--compared to the U.S. average of 21.6%.
 In Rupert, the median household income was $20,250.00 (U.S was $41,994.00) with
a per capita income of $11,554.00 (U.S. was $21,587.00)

Additionally, the Census Bureau data also shows that 31.3% of individuals five
years and older are disabled as compared to the overall U.S. percentage of 19.3%.
These statistics are frightening for the Rupert Elementary community, and the
reason for citing them is clearly indicated by another US Census report. In the year
2000, more than 40 percent of adults in the lowest literacy level lived in poverty. Adults
at the lowest levels of literacy earned a median income of $240 per week, compared to
$681 for those at the highest levels. According to the National Institute for Literacy, the
likelihood of being on welfare goes up as literacy levels go down. Three out of four food
stamp recipients performed in the two lowest literacy levels, and seventy percent of
adults with the lowest literacy skills are unemployed or work in part-time jobs.
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
The evidence supporting the need for improved literacy connections within the
Rupert Elementary community is clear. For our student population to succeed in the
future, we must build their literacy skills NOW!
b. Goals and Objectives for the Project:
Research on reading regarding student performance over the last 30 years
indicates that reading in the United States has flat lined. Mostly because classroom
teachers around the country are focusing on content in the core series rather than teaching
reading skills that can be applied across any genre to any reading or writing scenario. The
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2000 found that reading for fun
had a positive impact on student reading performance as related to NAEP reading scores.
The goals and objectives for this project have been well planned in advance
through the strategic planning process. We will increase reading proficiency for all
students in the Innovation Zone Project as demonstrated in moving one performance level
for students, scoring below mastery on WESTEST2, as well as showing growth to grade
level proficiency in their lexile scores.
Students that were already at mastery levels will show increased proficiency by
growth in their lexile score as shown on the WESTEST2 and will increase their overall
proficiency in the mastery performance descriptors.
Objectives for making this happen are aligned with both the core components of
the Success for All Reading Program as well as with the West Virginia Framework for
High Performing Elementary Schools. The overall components of the Success for All
Reading Program were developed at Johns Hopkins University and embedded in the
classroom pedagogical practices of Dr. Robert Slavin (AKA the Father of Cooperative
Learning.)
Objectives:
1. Implementation of systematic research-based instruction that is embedded in Johns
Hopkins University research and based on Dr. Robert Slavin’s pedagogical
approaches to cooperative learning and team building in the classroom environment.
2. Creating classroom environments that are tailored to student needs and create
opportunities for group and individual learning, discovery, exploration, development
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
of communication skills and working in a team environment to solve problems
through structured cooperative learning tasks.
3. All teachers will be trained on differentiated instruction and how to adjust content,
process, product, assessments and grouping patterns to accommodate the unique
characteristics of our student population. This is why staff development is a huge
component of planning for the Innovation Zone Project. There will be a complete
paradigm shift in our methodological approach, which is embedded in the WV
Framework of High Performing Schools.
4. Utilization of technology and 21st century assessment practices of formative/skills
driven classroom assessments, benchmark assessments of and for learning and
summative assessments to monitor, measure and assure that the instructional and
curricular priorities of the 21st century CSOs are being achieved by both staff and
students.
5. Rupert Elementary will group all students together based on their instructional level
in grades 3-5 and use the WV 21st century CSOs as the core curriculum to guide all
instructional and assessment practices.
c. Activities necessary to implement and achieve the goals/objectives of the
innovation initiative.
Our practices are embedded and outlined in the WV Framework for High
Performing Elementary Schools. We believe that the Success for All reading model is
an innovative approach to meeting the unique needs of our community’s
demographics while still aligning all instructional and curricular practices with the
Response to Intervention model as outlined by the WVDE. Incumbent upon us is the
implementation of this program by the book. We must train ourselves to a new way
of thinking, teaching, and working with each other for the betterment of our children.
Success for All provides for training and staff development during initial roll-out, and
a facilitator/mentor to work alongside us and provide quality job-embedded staff
development during the implementation phase of the program. This program
facilitator will help train our staff in research-based instructional delivery models that
include systematic, explicit instructional practices by the classroom teacher, multiple
opportunities for our students to practice reading skills, scaffolding of instruction and
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
assessment with implementation of graphic organizers and holistic assessments,
flexible groupings with opportunity for upward mobility, celebration of student
successes, and high interest instructional level materials for all students to address the
unique individual student learning needs.
The first stage in developing a cohesive curriculum is staff development both in
an initial two day training and job embedded quarterly throughout the school year to
meet the unique needs of each staff member. Every staff member affected is
committed to this model, and believes in the fundamental theories behind it, but in
practice it will be much, much different than our traditional program. The two day
initial staff development will provide faculty with training led by Success for All
personnel. This will be an intensive boot camp on reading instruction and utilizing
trade books to address reading skills as outlined in the WV 21st century CSOs. The
staff will experience complete immersion in this innovative approach to reading
instruction with trade books as the core curriculum and cooperative learning model.
Team building exercises and skill development will ensure our successful
implementation of Success for All.
Data disaggregation will also change somewhat, due to the intra-grade-level
grouping that will now be our norm. Rather than focusing on grade-level or
classroom characteristics, we are looking intensively at individual students’ strengths
and weaknesses, and painstakingly placing them into a class where their most
important instructional reading needs can be met and nurtured with a belief that all
students will be performing at or above grade level expectations or performance
descriptors as defined on the WESTEST2 by the end of the year. This grouping will
be based on both the Acuity benchmarking as well as the Scholastic Reading
Inventory results. We will spend at least one (paid, non-instructional) day prior to
roll-out fine-tuning our data dissemination each quarter.
Project Evaluation
The primary means of evaluating our project will be WESTEST 2 and Writing
Assessment data as collected for the 2011-2012 school year. It is our target, as defined in
our school strategic plan, to have 86% of our students performing at or above grade level
standards, with a goal of 100% of all students performing on or above grade level
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
standards by 2013-2014. Another performance indicator which we will rely on heavily
will be lexile scores as reported by the Scholastic Reading Inventory. It is our goal also
for each student’s lexile level to show at least one leveled year’s growth per student with
a greater growth being shown in our lower performing students. This growth will need to
be individualized based on the needs of our lowest performing students. Therefore all
students will take the Scholastic Reading Inventory at the end of the 2010-2011 school
year and within the first four weeks of school for the 2011-2012 school year to get base
line data. This assessment will be used throughout the school year per grading period to
evaluate student growth. Other assessment data on skills instruction will be evaluated
with the Acuity benchmarking program and the WV Writes program. After these
assessments are given, reteaching and enrichment opportunities will be given to all
students based on their skills needs. There will be additional opportunities built into the
school schedule through walk-to-intervention to address the unique skill and enrichment
needs of our students.
Each student will have an individualized assessment and progression folder to
document student growth throughout the school year. This information will also be
documented in growth reports from the Acuity and WV Writes websites.
Scalability and Sustainability
The initial funding period during Phase I will primarily be used for job-embedded
professional development, paid non-instructional days for staff training, and the program
materials themselves. Because the Success for All program utilizes trade books instead
of traditional texts, they will never be out of date or obsolete. They will continue to serve
long after the initial funding has been depleted. Further, the training we receive will
strengthen our staff cohesiveness and effectiveness for many years. In addition, many of
the program materials and support staff funding will be eligible for coverage under the
guidelines of Step 7, county levy support funds, county level staff development training
funds that are given to the school for school level staff development, and school level
Title I funds. We hope that the success we achieve with Phase I will continue into Phase
II as we implement the Success for All reading model and with the purchase of the trade
novels for each grade level 3-5.
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
Rupert Elementary was recently honored as a West Virginia School of Excellence,
and is regarded as a leader in our county for continually revamping and improving our
curriculum. We hope to continue this pattern of leadership with the implementation of a
new and innovative reading model, and to help our school system and state realize greater
student achievement in the coming years.
Abstract
As the requirements of a global society increases pressure for students to possess
personal and workplace productivity skills, thinking and communication skills, as well as
a great understanding of the importance of reading as a vital component of success. At
Rupert Elementary we propose an Innovation Zone project called, “For the Love of
Reading”. At the heart of this project are the research based ideas of building classroom
communities where students are reading high-interest materials based on novels and
classic of literature and mastering reading skills that are promoted within various genres.
The students also learn how to be a contributing member of a team. Our teachers will all
be using the cooperative learning model as design by Dr. Robert Slavin. These activities
include the strategies of team discussion, numbered heads together, think-pair-share and
active listening activities. In addition, our staff will receive job-embedded professional
development on the implementation of trade books and structured cooperative learning
practices where performance rubrics are used to monitor student progression in each
cooperative learning scenario. Prior to the beginning of the school year, the main phase of
training involves a two-day academic boot camp on reading with Success for All. Also
during Phase I of the project, the teachers will receive their classroom sets of novels.
However, Phase I constructs an important foundation to enhance teacher knowledge and
understanding of cooperative classrooms, utilization of trade books in instruction and
aligning of the materials with the CSOs to ensure that 100% of the skills are covered.
They will need this staff development to develop essential understanding of this
innovative approach to reading instruction. Rupert Elementary also realizes the
importance of informing the educational community about key curricular and
instructional practices at the school. Family involvement activities will build the homeschool connections to create the environment for 20-minutes of at-home reading daily as
prescribed by the Success for All Program.
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
Budget Justification
Budget Item
Narrative
Description of Item
Staff Development
- 3 days of intensive
training on teaching
reading with trade
novels, cooperative
learning and analysis
of lexile scores to
meet the student
instructional needs
- 5 days of job
embedded on-site
training throughout
the school year. The
teacher will receive
coaching to ensure
that the cooperative
learning and novels
are being
implemented with all
the components of
Robert Slavin's Model
and the Johns
Hopkins University
research.
Staff development is the
essential component when
planning any pedagogical
change in the educational
environment. We believe that
staff development itself must
be an educational experience.
Therefore a major component
of this Innovation Zone project
is building the teacher
background and confidence
within the staff to be
innovative. In addition, the
teachers need support
throughout the process as it is
natural human propensity to
forgot or have questions once
the implementation stage
starts. This type of jobembedded and clearly structure
staff development is research
supported as the most effective
form of staff development,
which impacts student
achievement.
Each trade novel is supported
with a teacher resources and a
cooperative learning structure.
These materials must be
purchased in advance to the
start of the school year and to
accompany the staff
development sessions. They
are also important to all stages
of the planning process and
alignment of the books with
the CSOs.
As the teachers are attending
this during the summer and for
the sake of time, lunch and
refreshment will be provided
for three days with snacks.
Whenever, making a change of
any type in a school
community it is important to
include the parents in the
process from planning to
implementation. We will hold
two parent reading nights to
help parents understand the
Innovation Zone project.
Hospitality services/light
refreshments
S20,000.00
Teachers will be paid the
traditional county stipend of
$150.00 a day for work outside
of their contract during the
summer training.
We would like to give all the
parents of student in grades 35 a reading supply packet.
That is based on the program
$ 4,800.00
Training Materials
Training
Refreshments and
Food
Parent Trainer
"Reading and
Program at
Home"
Refreshment for
the parent
trainings
Stipend for the
Training
Parent Reading
Kits
Rupert Elementary
Proposed
Amount
Funded by
Others
WVDE Office
Use Only
0

-
$7,928.00
0
$1,250.00
estimated
0
0
$1,200.00
Title I Budget:
$300.00
0
Title I Budget:
100 Kits x $20=
$2,000.00
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Innovation Zone: FOR THE LOVE OF READING
Trainer per diem
Purchase of
Scholastic
Reading
Inventory (SRI)
Purchase of
Trade Novels
and reading novels.
This is rooming, travel and
expenses for the trainer.
This is an assessment tool for
monitoring the student’s
instructional level each
grading period. This tool will
give us the student’s lexile
score as well as instructional
level for aligning the novels
with student needs.
These are novels and classics
of literature that will be the
primary textbook resource for
instruction, rather than the core
series for grades 3-5. Teachers
will need these during the
planning phrase for reading,
reviewing, developing lesson
plans, common assessment
development and pacing
guided development.
TOTAL
$2,500.00
0
$1,725.00
0
$ 11,796.00
Supplement as
needed with levy
and Step VII
$49,999
$3,500.00
Indicate the policies or code that prohibit or constrain the design:
• __X__ Specific waiver requested of county policy.
• _____ Specific waiver requested of WVBOE policy.
• __X__ Specific waiver requested of WV code/statute.
Innovation Zone
School/Consortium
State Code Waiver
Request (specify
section and article)
Rupert Elementary
18-2A-8
Rupert Elementary
State Policy Waiver
Request (specify
section and article)
Impact of the waiver - What
will the waiver enable the
school to do differently?
This waiver will allow Rupert
Elementary staff in grades 3-5 to
implement classroom sets of novels
through use of the Success for All
Reading program. This is being
requested under state policy 18-5A6 and county policy 2250. This
program will address the remedial
and accelerated needs of students at
Rupert Elementary, by allowing
teachers to address student
instructional needs across grade
levels.
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