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This article originally appeared in the Montgomery Advertiser on February 3, 2000.

Unlocking the Door to School Success
by Cathy Gassenheimer

The Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) is a research-based comprehensive program developed by the State Department of Education to provide teachers with on-going training, information and support to enable them to more effectively teach students how to read and how to increase their comprehension and writing skills.

To be selected as an ARI Literacy Demonstration Site, the entire faculty must agree to the goal of 100 percent literacy in that school and the majority of teachers must participate in a rigorous 10-day training in the summer. Sites must identify and work with a higher education partner, who will support the faculty throughout the year as they begin to implement reading strategies learned during the training.

Now, halfway through its second year, the ARI is having a profound impact on teachers, students, parents, the principals and the community. It is changing the way prospective teachers are taught in college.

Let me share a few comments from educators involved in the ARI …

"Our training was a powerful, life-changing process for 95% of our faculty. Each grade (6-8) developed a plan, which included a method for improving reading for each child. Each department had to determine activities, which were cogent to the integration of reading and writing into their curriculum and develop a departmental plan reflecting this. After only one semester of reading intervention at Cedar Ridge Middle School [in Decatur], we have accomplished the following things: Our students have read 7,667 books; discipline referrals have gone from 1,090 to 840; library circulation has increased by two-thirds; student surveys reflect increased feelings of respect for other students for the first time in the history of the school."

"At Montevallo elementary, we have made exciting gains during our first semester. Our third grade has traditionally performed poorly on the SAT. This year in August, 66% of our third graders were reading below grade level on the STAR assessment - bad news for next spring's SAT. In December, though, this percentage had already dropped so that only 32% were below grade level on the STAR. Important to all the teachers, too, are the results about children reading above grade level since we've become an ARI school. The number of children reading above grade level has more than doubled in the second and third grades, doubled in the fourth grade and increased too in the fifth grade. Our training and involvement with ARI is what we credit with the changes for both the struggling readers and those above grade level."

"When visitors from another school came to visit Demopolis High School as an Alabama Reading Initiative Literacy Demonstration Site, my eyes were opened to the change that has taken place this year. Several of the visiting teachers and the principal asked, 'Do you have discipline problems at your school?' I told them we certainly did, but as we walked down the hallways, they remarked that they didn't see any. I looked with a different perspective and realized that they were right. Our discipline problems have diminished considerably. Students are reading instead of talking and misbehaving. Already they have checked out more books during the first semester than they did all last year. Teachers are more motivated, too, and seem excited about new beginnings. The training we have received through the Alabama Reading Initiative has certainly brought a change to Demopolis High School! Perhaps by the end of the semester, I can report, 'No, we have no more discipline problems."

"Anthony [not his real name] began the year a non-reader. His reading level was pre-primer (frustration). This is his second year in second grade. Anthony saw no purpose in reading almost as if he had never read or been read to. Anthony was a behavior problem in his classroom. He never smiled. Basically, he had no personality. He made no attempt to learn.

"We began reading together in August 1999. As we worked together, Anthony and I talked and became friends. A smile developed on his face and his answer to each question asked was no longer 'huh.'

"I learned that Anthony lives with his grandparents, his mother and his high school brother (special ed.). They are all non-readers. Anthony is now reading on a second-grade level -the first person in his family to learn to read."

The ARI is having this type of impact in schools all over the state. Another 160 schools will be added this summer, and over time, teachers from every public school in Alabama will be exposed to this type of proven professional development. The Alabama Reading Initiative: Investing in teachers, investing in students and investing in our future.

Cathy Gassenheimer is the managing director of the A+ Education Partnership.