Special education gets fresh look in Minnesota schools

Christopher Magan:

Nancy Cooley has spent 20 years helping struggling young readers build a foundation for academic success.

Each day, Cooley works individually with students like Gavin Bass, a Rosemount first-grader, who need extra help mastering specific literacy skills using a program called "Reading Recovery." Interventions like these can help get a student back on course, possibly avoiding a learning-disability classification.

"It is designed to catch kids early on, before they feel like they are not successful," said Cooley, a teacher at Diamond Path Elementary School for International Studies in Apple Valley. She will work with students such as Gavin for a half-hour each day - drilling, quizzing and practicing early literacy concepts to improve core skills.

For Gavin, the program has been a big confidence boost, said his mother, Sarah Bass.

"He loves to read because of it," she said. "The intervention was everything we had hoped for and more. It has been so much fun for him, and he's very proud of himself. We wouldn't have known how to do this at home."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 14, 2012 2:40 AM
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