By Sue Cruver
It began in May of 1997 as one of the most innovative educational programs ever undertaken by the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The Rodeo Institute for Teacher Excellence, known as RITE, is currently in its second phase of a three-year pilot program to provide elementary school teachers in the Houston Independent School District with the skills to better teach reading to at-risk students in kindergarten through third grade. According to those involved, the program is right on track and appears to be accomplishing its goals. "The responses we got back from the teachers and principals at the end of the [first] year were very positive," said Dianne Morris, RITE program coordinator. "They were very pleased with the program and what they saw happen with their kids. We heard teachers say they felt they were reaching every child in their classrooms with the program. No one was getting past them." Currently, RITE program personnel and Show Executive Committee members are analyzing both internal and external evaluations of teacher/trainer instruction and student reading achievement. "We plan to check these kids and follow them from kindergarten through third grade," said P. Michael Wells, the Show's first vice president and chairman of the At-Risk Task Force. After that, he said, students will be followed through the regular HISD testing programs. Executive Committee member James M. Windham Jr., who chaired the Show's original 1994 task force and helped research the at-risk student problem in the Greater Houston area, points to the fact that in some ways it may be more difficult to see the tangible, short-term results of the Show's RITE program, compared to that of other Show educational programs. "It is easy to recognize the success we have had in the scholarship program as students walk across a stage, and we are giving [scholarships] to the best and the brightest - the very elite one-half of 1 percent," he said. Windham added that the Show initiated the RITE program based on a growing concern for the other end of the spectrum, where students not able to read were likely not to complete school and, perhaps, become problems in society. Executive Committee members were able to see some of the results of the RITE program during one of their scheduled meetings in April 1998. A group of students from Windsor Village Elementary School came to the Show offices, and a teacher demonstrated with a short lesson so members could see how the program worked. She then asked the children to volunteer to read. "It was very impressive," said Wells. "A kindergartner read a second-grade reader and did it very well. It was an experience that everyone appreciated." According to Morris, the Institute has trained a total of 150 teachers through the summer of 1998. Currently, the RITE reading program involves 1,600 students and is being implemented in 123 classrooms in 10 elementary schools in the southeast and southwest areas of HISD. Four of those schools - Davila, J.R. Harris, Lewis and Southmayd - are new to the program in 1998. J.R. Harris is utilizing the program in a bilingual setting for the first time. Schools were chosen based on a high at-risk factor, meaning there were low reading scores and low grades. Morris sees 1998-99 as a big year for the program. "This year it's really nice," she said, "because the kindergartners and first graders we worked with last year now have trained teachers who have been able to pick up and continue the program with them from the start of the school year. Last year, being our first year of implementation, we started with a lot of our kids well below where they should have been in reading, and the teachers were not at the comfort level with the program they are now." She went on to say that first- and second-grade students were able to start the school year reading at one level above where they would have been without the program. "The students also know how to do independent work and have expectations of success already in place." According to Morris, the focus during the 1998-99 school year will be to sharpen the skills of the teachers and increase the pace of the program so students may move as rapidly as possible. There also will be an effort to develop a leadership initiative among original program teachers to ready them for the third year of the program and to carry it on in later years. From the Show's perspective, there will
be an effort to encourage and find more volunteers to help with the evaluation
phases of the program. According to Ruby Bloodworth, wife of Show President
Jim Bloodworth, the volunteers who participated in the first two-week, one-on-one
testing process in 1997 found it rewarding. "This is one time,"
she said, "that members of the Show can be part of a program where
they can see that they are personally making a difference. They can see
how excited the children are about being able to read." As the RITE program is able to build on the recognized success of its initial efforts, it is conceivable that it will not only continue to make a difference in the Greater Houston area but potentially will become a model replicated elsewhere in the country. This program is another example of how the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is making a difference - by implementing innovative programs when it comes to educating youth.
|
||||
Letters and comments should be sent to: |
||||
