President Bush hears testimonials from education practitioners
Reid Lyon, Don Deschler (KU-CRL), Faith Stevens (Reading First Coordinator
for Michigan), and Cynthia Henderson (Kindergarten teacher, Floyd
Elementary School, Montgomery, AL) This is a transcript of Ms. Henderson's
testimonial:
President Bush: "We've got Cynthia Henderson with
us from Montgomery, Alabama. I'm really glad you're here. Cynthia
is a kindergarten teacher. And she went to the Reading First training
program. And why don't you tell us what that was like. As I understand,
it was slightly intimidating to begin with. Is that an accurate
assessment?
Ms. Henderson: Actually it was. We went through, initially,
two weeks of training in the reading initiative programs teaching
us how to teach our children. The program is actually called "Read
Well" and our job is to teach them not just to read but to
teach them, Mr. President, to read well… and it was grueling
but we did it. I want to talk about, if you don't mind, my classroom.
I am so grateful that, initially, as I said, when I went in there,
it was intimidating – there was a lot of resources, a lot
of material they were throwing at us -- expectations for the children
were so high and the children rose to the occasion. Mr. President,
I would like to announce that my children 100% benchmarked, across
the board – in letter naming and fluency, in initial sound
fluency, and phoneme segmentation across the board 100%. And these
are five- and six-year-olds and now every last one of them are
readers! (applause) And I am so excited that, for two years straight,
the principal of my school has made sure that we get the training
that we need to go into these reading camps and it's so very exciting
to me – I just got a fire lit under me. And I am so excited
about getting back in for the next year, implementing… I
was told initially that I was going to go to the first grade but
just before I got here (to DC), I was told that they were going
to keep me in kindergarten – I'm just excited. I will be
also teaching summer school to help those other children that
did not benchmark to benchmark. I'm just so excited about that
– it's so much.
At the beginning of the year, I saw some of my children come
into my classroom and they didn't even know their – they
could recognize their letters but a lot of them just did not know
their sounds. So after working with the program, and teaching
them their sounds, I've got children who … every, every
little thing they did, we were taught to praise them. Every little
thing that they did, even before they benchmarked, I'd give them
a high five. And that just lit a fire under them. So now at the
end of the year, they've all benchmarked. As a matter of fact,
I got my results right before I came here – Monday at our
last faculty meeting, and they have maintained 100% benchmark.
President Bush: Benchmark means – explain to –
benchmark means they met expectations?
Ms. Henderson: They've met every expectation for the entire
year.
President Bush: So what's she saying is that she's kind
of sent these little fellows and little ladies off to a glorious
future because they've got the foundations for reading.
Ms. Henderson: And you know, because I work at a school
that… where most of the children that are enrolled there
are either on poverty level or below poverty level, it means so
much to me because some of them are going to be the first ones
in their families to even attend college. It is so exciting that
they're so excited about reading. And I think it's all about changing
a school, that changes a community, that changes a whole city,
that changes a state, that changes a whole nation of readers.
President Bush: There you go. I agree
