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Lexington City Schools is continuing to prepare for the implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
“Tonight I would like to spend a little time talking about what is the Virginia Literacy Act, what are the pieces that we’re having to implement, what do our steps look like right now and what’s coming,” Superintendent Rebecca Walters told the School Board at its May meeting last week.
“The Virginia Literacy Act is legislation that focuses on changes in instructional practices, assessment, and teacher preparation to align with the science of reading,” she explained.
“The legislation requires that school districts implement evidence-based literacy instruction and assessment in K-8 classrooms in Virginia,” Walters said. “This will be implemented with teacher training, curriculum and supplemental resources, and a division-wide literacy plan.”
Lexington, she noted, has been taking steps to prepare for the VLA’s implementation.
“All of our Waddell teachers have had that training that includes evidence-based literacy training, to make sure that they are using those in our classrooms,” said Walters.
“We’re kind of ahead of the game, and it’s been kind of exciting as we’ve gone to regional meetings and state meetings to say, we have these pieces that have been put in place these last couple of years.”
For the first year, changes in reading instruction will cover kindergarten through fifth grade students, and will expand through grade eight in the second year.
Lylburn Downing teachers will begin their VLA-mandated training this fall.
Lexington has been training teachers in Orton-Gillingham, a method of reading instruction.
“You’ve heard me talk about this a lot. Orton-Gillingham is a structured literacy approach; it introduced the idea of breaking reading and spelling down into smaller skills, involving letters and sounds, and building on these skills over time, with age,” Walters explained.
Though some of the Orton-Gillingham materials were not initially approved under the VLA, division teachers and staff made a push for the program to be included.
“We advocated pretty hard for that,” said Walters. “There was some pushback from legislators and folks who were not in the classrooms to not possibly allow divisions to use some of those resources that we had spent a lot of time training and buying and using in our classrooms.
“Our reading specialists wrote a letter to the Board of Education and I wrote a letter to the Board of Education, and we got a message last week that they have been approved, which was very exciting and was a big relief to our schools,” she said.
The division has also adopted a new reading curriculum, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt’s “Into Reading,” from the state’s list of approved materials.
“The Virginia act required us to choose a state-approved, high-quality instructional materials program. You all approved that purchase last month,” said Walters. “We received three large pallets, about 40 boxes this week, that are sitting in the hallway at Waddell, ready to be unpacked and getting up into those classrooms.”
A division literacy plan is also being created, which will be submitted to the Department of Education and approved by the School Board.
“We are in the process right now of finalizing our division literacy plan; we’ve been working on it for the last few months. It will communicate the division’s literacy vision,” said Walters.
“It will talk about what kind of instructional materials we’re using, and it will talk about the training that we’re using as a division, the assessments and screenings that we plan to use, how we will monitor our progress, and how we will engage families,” she said.
Family engagement is an importance piece of the VLA, she said, and will be accomplished through information sharing from the schools and through including families in reading intervention plans for students.
Walters said that while work will continue on the VLA, Lexington is ready to see changes go into effect.
“We’re excited. It’s a lot of work, and it’s a little bit overwhelming for teachers and principals and reading specialists, but it’s for the right reason and we have really great things happening,” she said.
“We already know we have things happening in our classrooms and this is just going to help us continue down that path of proficiency and improving literacy.”
