Through a partnership with Cal State Fullerton’s Hazel Miller Croy Reading Center, teachers and students at an Orange elementary school received extra help this summer to improve students’ reading, writing and language skills.
University reading professors and alumni collaborated with Sycamore Elementary School teachers and the principal to provide professional learning in the areas of literacy and reading intervention to support the individual needs of Sycamore students, said Erica Bowers, chair and associate professor reading and director of the reading center.
“A focus for the College of Education and the Department of Literacy and Reading Education is to promote faculty engagement in the community,” said Bowers. “This partnership between the Hazel Miller Croy Reading Center and Sycamore Elementary allowed faculty and alumni to collaborate with Sycamore teachers to build capacity in teaching reading and increase student achievement. This improves the practice of both faculty and classroom teachers.”
The Summer Learning Academy was supported by a $10,000 grant from Orange Unified School District. Along with Bowers, Kathryn Glasswell, associate professor of reading, and alums Yvette Ortiz Iacopetti and Joanne Chapman, who each earned a master’s degree in education-reading in 2010, also helped lead the academy. The school’s principal, Heather Bosworth, also is an alumna, and earned her master’s degree in education-reading in 2009.