Get Ready to Read! News from the Field 
May 2007

While attending the National Center for Family Literacy Conference in Orlando, Florida, the Get Ready to Read! team came across a poster session participant who was singing the praises of the Get Ready to Read! screening tool and related resources.

Barbara Lucieer works with the Even Start program and runs the Resource Room for Parents in the Family Learning Connections Center at the Sodus Primary School in Sodus, New York.  A few years ago, the school was looking for ways to purposefully engage all parents with incoming kindergarten students.  Ms. Lucieer and her colleagues wanted to add to the kindergarten entry process by giving parents more information about their child so they could help in the process of getting children ready for school.  During the planning process, Ms. Lucieer's colleague returned from a conference with a copy of the Get Ready to Read! screening tool.  Ms Lucieer immediately noticed the screening tool would be a perfect match with the families she works with because it "provides a brief screener with a balance of early literacy concepts."

Ms. Lucieer and her colleagues have now set up a new system for kindergarten screening. Instead of having parents sit to the side while their children are screened for kindergarten entry, Ms. Lucieer sits with each parent and explains the screening tools that are being used (one of them being the Get Ready to Read! screening tool), and she provides each parent with a packet full of activities to use over the summer to build skills before the first day of kindergarten. Ms. Lucieer says that many parents do not realize the importance of learning early literacy concepts such as book rules and sequencing, and that "most parents think their child only needs to know their letters and numbers to do well in kindergarten. We want to be sure parents realize there is a continuum of skills needed for being ready for school."

By helping parents become more engaged in the process of early literacy and school readiness from the beginning of their formal school experience, Ms. Lucieer and her team are showing parents "that we are a team and that we value their role as part of the partnership that will help their children succeed in school."