PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia teachers are students this week, as they attend a week of literacy training at Fels High School in the Northeast.
Eight-hundred K-3 teachers are sitting in classrooms at Fels High this week, sharing strategies about how to teach reading, says the District’s Chief Academic Support Officer Cheryl Logan.
“We are teaching the love of reading,” Logan said. “They are learningabout phonemic awareness and phonics and how to effectively lead guided reading and shared reading in their classrooms.”
It’s the third year of a three-year summer literacy program. Kim Newman is principal at Chester A. Arthur Elementary School.
“I just sat through a presentation by a kindergarten teacher at Clara Barton,” Newman explained. “And I even sent a text message to one of my teachers in a different room. I said, ‘I just saw the best idea,’ and I explained what I saw.”
It’s an effort to boost the percentage of Philly students reading on grade level by age 8, something fewer than half of them do now.