Rethinking Key Steps To Reading Success in 2020

    Written by: Danielle Curry-Bentley, Early Childhood Network Facilitator 

This year, Akron Public Schools faced the challenges of a 100% virtual first semester. Making the family engagement program, Key Steps to Reading Success, accessible calls for some creativity. Summit Education Initiative and The University of Akron created the Key Steps program to help develop early reading skills in new kindergarten students’ homes.

Each participating school district has a Champion. Typically, the Champion sends one kit home weekly for eight weeks. The family reads the story multiple times, teaching the skill given for that week, then sends back feedback to the school. Champions such as Tracy Martin, Dean of Students at Pfeiffer CLC, had to switch gears this year. Since Key Steps To Reading Success Champions can not meet with families in-person this semester, they had to think creatively in using the program.

Tracy Martin and her team created an opportunity linking the Akron Public School’s lunch program and their Family Liaison to the KSTRS. Children in the program get their lunches and their weekly Key Steps reading packets delivered at the same time!

The packet goes out each Thursday and the children complete the program with their parent/guardian. The package is picked up by APS and returned to school when the next meal goes home. (Pictured is one week’s KSTRS lesson & two students receiving their delivery.) Thank you to Akron Public Schools and The University of Akron for supporting the Key Steps to Reading Success Program! 

How the Program Works

Once a district decides and registers to participate in Key Steps, each of their elementary schools identifies at least one “champion” who will oversee the program.

Each champion invites families whose child has a KRA Language and Literacy score below 263 to participate in the program. In the beginning, these families receive a folder with a book, activities, and a parent newsletter. Each week, champions refill the folders with new materials, books, and a literacy skill focus. Families keep all materials and books they receive throughout the 8-week program.

Matthew Deevers, Executive Director of SEI, explains, “when a family completes the entire program, students have learned letters, rhyming, comprehension skills, and sight words.”

School champions reach out to families who do not return the folder and encourage them to stick with the program. They also track data, such as weekly student attendance and student reading benchmark status by the time the program ends.

“At the end of the program, students have started reading simple books, and families have at least 14 new books in their homes,” Deevers says.