News Channel 5, Nashville, School Patrol Education Reporter Kelsey Gibbs broke the story of how Metro Nashville Public Schools and Stanford are collaborating with Once on a randomized controlled trial on the efficacy of daily, one-on-one, in-person reading instruction in kindergarten.
Reporter Gibbs went to Warner Elementary School. She focuses her segment on Asjah Hall, a paraprofessional at Warner Elementary who is delivering the Once Early-Reading Program.
As Ms. Hall states, “When they’re in the classroom, they’re in there with 10 or 15 other kids and the teacher… so for them to be able to sit one-on-one next to me… I’m able to meet them where they’re at.”
“We sit down with them for about 15 minutes, going through letter sounds and gradually combining them to form words. Our goal is to progress to reading full sentences and paragraphs as the program unfolds,” she said.
Ms. Hall continues, “It’s important that they do it now, so that when they get into the other grade levels, 1st, 2nd, that they have that foundation, that they’re able to read and it’s not a struggle for them.”
We couldn’t agree more! Thank you Ms. Hall, the Warner Elementary grade-level team, and Metro Nashville Public Schools for all that you are doing to teach kindergarteners to read.