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Tift County Public Schools
Tifton, Georgia
Reading Recovery was initiated in Tift County Public Schools during
the 1996-1997 school term. A teacher leader was trained at Georgia
State University and the first training class began the following
year with 12 teachers. Full implementation was accomplished during
the second training class. After a period of 3 years, Reading
Recovery teachers began to rotate out of Reading Recovery so that
other teachers could be trained. Approximately 50 teachers have been
trained at the site since the first year. This means the school
system has a core of highly trained literacy teachers available for
students.
During the 2007-2008 school term, 20 Reading Recovery teachers
plus the teacher leader served the bottom 34% (198 children) of
first-grade students. By the end of that year, a cumulative total of
2,030 students had been served in Reading Recovery in Tift County
Public Schools. Reading Recovery teachers also teach small literacy
groups for the other part of their day. This allows teachers to
monitor ongoing progress for former students who have successfully
completed lessons and for those few who did not reach grade-level
expectations during their lessons.
Tifton is a small rural community in southern Georgia with a
population of approximately 41,000. Tift County’s poverty level for
5- to 17-year-olds is 40.5%, which is the fourth highest in the
state according to the 2007 Census Poverty Data by Local Educational
Agency. Well over 60% of the students in the system are eligible for
free lunches. Five primary schools in the county house 34
first-grade classrooms. For children who had a full series of
Reading Recovery lessons, 76% met grade-level expectations. Results
on the six tests of the Observation Survey also ran equal or above
the national random sample. Also noteworthy is the fact that 75% of
these students passed the state mandated test for first-grade
students.
In addition to Reading Recovery, Tift County Public Schools is
fully implemented in Literacy Collaborative. There is positive
support for Reading Recovery by administration, the school board,
school principals, and parents. Each school has a literacy team to
insure continued success and support for Reading Recovery students.
On a teacher leader visit, Becky
Powell and
Donna Smith discuss the student's writing
process.
Suzanne Belk, Donna Smith, Debbie McGriff, and
Melinda Howell discuss Reading Recovery data
for each school's site.
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