All first grade students who score below the 40th percentile on the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment for the beginning of the school year will complete further testing with Mrs. Loop, our Literacy Specialist. First grade students who are found to be struggling with identifying letters in their name, identifying letters and sounds, tracking words in a book, and/or reading sight words will be placed in a small intervention group where they will be meeting daily for 30 minutes to review these basic concepts. This practice is in addition to the regular reading instruction each child receives in their classroom. These groups will meet before breakfast each morning with one of the following adults: Mrs. Loop (our Literacy Specialist), Mrs. Manskie (our PE teacher), Mrs. Sorensen (our music teacher), Mr. Whitaker (our EL teacher), and our Title 1 assistant. 

In addition to the daily support they will receive in their intervention group, literacy backpacks will also be sent home with these students every other week. There are a variety of literacy games in the backpacks that review the concepts that they need practice with. Students will take the literacy backpacks home on Monday and return them on Thursday and complete the literacy activity nightly with their family.  The activities in the backpacks will allow their parents to practice the literacy skills with their child in a fun way. Our hopes are that with this consistent review of letters and sounds and review of reading words, these students will not need this extra intervention very long so that they can focus on more difficult literacy skills that will be expected of them in first grade. 

As the year progresses the literacy backpacks will be shared with kindergarten students and their families also.

At Lahontan Elementary we have partnered with the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra program since the 2022-2023 school year.  The United Reader program is designed to improve foundational literacy skills through mentoring with a specially trained AmeriCorps mentor.  These AmeriCorps mentors meet with kindergarten and first grade students in small groups and focus on phonemic awareness, which is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds . These mentors meet with students who tested below the 40th percentile on their MAP ELA testing (Measures of Academic Progress English Language Arts testing).  In conjunction with our Literacy Specialist, Katy Loop, students are scheduled to meet with the mentors in small groups of 3 or less students for 30 minutes daily.  This extra support helps ensure that our students are making the progress they need with their reading development to become successful readers.   Visit the following website to learn more about the United Reader program: https://www.uwnns.org/UnitedReaders

Our United Reader AmericCorps mentor who will be assisting our students during the 2024-25 school year is Caitlin Coker.  Caitlin has been with us since we began our partnership in the 2022-2023 school year and there will be one more United Reader AmeriCorps mentor hired to support our students this year.