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Sinnreich noted that the program was instituted at the
suggestion of a KDES parent.
“Donna Venturini, the mother of Megan Venturini, had a son
at another school who was using AR,” said Sinnreich. “She
thought the program would benefit her daughter and other
students at Kendall. She convinced us to take a look at this as a
supplementary program.”
Venturini first shared the program with members of
Parents as Partners, a committee of parents and teachers that
helps shape direction for programming at KDES. Venturini
thought that if the school was willing to incorporate the
program, the Kendall Home School Organization, a parent
organization, could invest by buying books for the program.
At first, Sinnreich confessed, some of the teachers were
skeptical. “But when we saw the excitement the program
generated, we realized it would be good for our school.”
AR and its complementary program, STAR Reading, a
computer-adapted, norm referenced reading test, have proved to
be invaluable educational tools. “By the time a child leaves the
program, you have a complete record of almost every book that
child has read,” said Sinnreich.
But it is the response of the students that has the teachers
excited.
“I see the students read during lunch and even during
classes,” said lead teacher Maureen Yates Burns. “When I told
one student to stop reading and pay attention, he said he
wanted to finish reading so he could take the test.”
Imagine that.
Working with Parents is Key to KDES Success
“When a school works together with parents, the students
will benefit,” said Leslie Page, family education coordinator for
the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. “The
Accelerated Reading (AR) program shows what can happen
when we work effectively with parents.”
When a parent brought AR to the attention of Parents as
Partners, committee members thought that it would be a good
program, said Page. “The strong endorsement of AR from a
parent initially encouraged us to take a look,” she added.
David Schleper, Clerc Center literacy coordinator,
investigated and supported the program. KDES teacher Yetti
Sinnreich coordinated and implemented the program initially
with a small number of students. “We decided that this was a
program that would support our literacy efforts,” said Page.
The AR implementation is another example of active KDES
parents, she added. Parents are involved in a myriad of KDES
events—including Back to School Night, Spirit Week, and the
annual baseball game and barbeque. All events are planned
collaboratively, Page said, with parents, teachers, and staff
working together to develop programs that meet the needs of
families.
Parents as Partners, a committee of parents, teachers, and
staff, works in partnership with the Kendall Home School
Organization and teachers and professional staff. Together they
tackle ideas and logistics to educate deaf children at home and
in the classroom.
“The more involved our parents are, the better off our
students will be,” Page maintained. “We strongly believe that
we need to find out what parents are interested in, and what
they want to learn more about.”
Many parents are concerned about literacy. They want to
learn more about how deaf children’s literacy develops and
what teachers do to promote it. The Parents as Partners team
has created activities that help parents learn about literacy
development and what teachers do to meet this need.
“We developed a panel in which teachers, parents, and the
literacy coordinator discussed questions. We followed this
with a literacy fair, which provided an opportunity to showcase
student work,” Page said. “The first step in investigating AR
was paying attention to parents and their concerns. At the
Clerc Center, working with parents is key.”
WINTER 2002 ODYSSEY
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