In alignment with the Birmingham City Schools (BCS) Force for Greatness Strategic Plan, the Bold Goals BCS Action Network is streamlining student-centered literacy efforts with community partners and helping ensure continuity in curriculum, training and data. Our shared goal is, by 2023, to increase the percentage of BCS students who meet the annual growth targets in reading by the end of third grade from 42% to 60%.
We were fortunate to have Jacqueline Dent, the BCS K-5 Literacy and Humanities Coordinator, facilitate a recent training and information exchange, which was open to all BCS partners. The training helped partners understand current literacy data, performance goals and instructional priorities for the school system, and offered practical tips for helping students reach their goals. The session also created the opportunity for partners to further explain to BCS representatives the services their organizations offer, and discuss any challenges they have been experiencing.
One of the most thought-provoking quotes that helped drive the session was:
“Reading comprehension is not simply recall or regurgitation of information encountered in text. The reader brings something to reading comprehension – it’s not just the information in the text, the information that the reader already possesses also influences the construction of meaning.”
-Rasinski and Padak, 2008
Community partners play a big role, not only in reinforcing school-based literacy strategies, but also in helping students construct meaning. When community partners give students the chance to interact with caring adults and have more opportunities to experience the world around them, students can grow by leaps and bounds. When community partners, schools and families work together toward shared goals, everyone wins!
The Bold Goals Coalition is 200 organizations solving big community problems by aligning partners, resources and agendas.