Violet Elementary School

St. Clair Shores, MI

2022 Read Live School of the Year Runner-Up

Submitted by Mary VanNieulande, Para Professional

Violet Elementary School has used Read Naturally programs for nearly 17 years. Read Live is now the backbone of the school's intervention reading curriculum. Violet currently uses Read Live with third, forth, and fifth grade students who have made substantial progress and gained confidence.

In her nomination, Mary wrote:

"This is our Read Live submission from Violet Elementary.  We are in the Lake Shore Public School District located in St. Clair Shores, Michigan.  We are a small school tucked away in a quiet neighborhood with big victories in reading.

Our Title 1 team has used Read Naturally for almost 17 years.  Back when they first started using it, the program was only on CDs with headsets and good old paper and pencil.  We use this program as a backbone to our intervention reading curriculum.

When the world shut down, Read Live was a vital part of our reading instruction.  We saw how the children thrived and they enjoyed it.  The program was very easy to use for families at home because each child had their own chromebooks, from our district, with the Read Naturally app on them.

This year we have been working with 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students.  We have had 17 students on the program with 3 children that have graduated out.  Eighty percent of our students have shown growth by advancing to another story level.  We have just recently added a few children too.

We are very proud of our students for making these strides and moving up in levels. We can see the confidence they are getting in themselves as they accomplish their stories and get all their questions correct.

Not only has the Read Live program helped our readers become stronger and confident in themselves, but it has helped us as educators.  We have watched many of your webinars and have learned a wealth of knowledge in how to use the program and to use the best component for the individual child.

Read Live has been an integral part of our reading program.  We hope to increase our resources if we are so fortunate to be chosen as this year's Read Live winning submission."