In its third year, Palo Alto Unified School District’s Every Student Reads Initiative, shows success in improving students’ reading outcomes.

Per a Feb. 15 PAUSD update, 54 percent of students who tested below grade level on the fall 2022 I ready assessment were at or above grade level this winter.

PAUSD Director of Literacy Instruction Danaé Reynolds said the scores of underprivileged students have risen.

“Our socio-economically disadvantaged students showed a 14 percentage point increase,” Reynolds said.

ESRI is designed to improve early literacy and equity, one of the five goals of the PAUSD Promise. ESRI’s goal is to get all students reading by the end of 3rd grade.

Teachers are using a new strategy called the Orton-Gillingham Method, defined by Understood.org as a method of teaching that ‘explicitly teaches the connections between letters and sounds.” Reynolds says the is looking forward to seeing future improvements from the program.

“We are excited to see [what] this last group of students … will look like when we take this assessment in May,” Reynolds said.