Boosting Literacy for All: RCSD’s Structured Literacy Approach Supports Diverse Learners

Redwood City School District (RCSD) aims to elevate students' reading achievement and goals through a structured literacy program for all coupled with differentiated supports and targeted interventions.

Structured literacy is an approach to reading that benefits all students in the classroom, including those with difficulty decoding words or students with dyslexia. This approach, designed to serve diverse learners, addresses phonological skills, decoding and spelling.

RCSD is in the process of selecting the assessment that will help our teachers identify students who have difficulties reading, which is also known as a screener for dyslexia, for K-3 students. Adoption of the District screening assessment, a California requirement, will take place by the end of the current school year.

Statistics vary, but dyslexia is not as rare as some may think. However, it can heavily impact learners across all subjects as reading is part of many academic tasks. People may imagine that dyslexia means that letters move around the page for readers, but dyslexia means that a student may have difficulty decoding words and comprehending what was read.

Structured literacy routines are guided by principles and should be systematic and cumulative, explicit and diagnostic.

Key features of a structured literacy approach provide:

Teaching at multiple levels–letter-sound relationships, syllables, vocabulary, sentence structure, and text structure

Explicit and systematic instruction–teachers model skills and instruction is planned and sequential

Cumulative–students have frequent opportunities to practice and review

Teacher interaction–there is a high level of student and teacher interaction, including prompt and meaningful corrective feedback

At the same time that students receive decoding instruction and practice through Structured Literacy routines, they also receive comprehension support through multiple modalities and opportunities for learners to expand their reading and writing through assistive technology.

Students can engage with texts through audio, visuals, and note taking tools to support literacy instruction. Learners can also receive differentiated and individualized instruction through various grade-appropriate apps.

These extra supports provide students with the opportunity to further grow skills and to gain strategies to help promote reading and writing proficiency.

Signs of dyslexia may include: confusing the order of letters in words, transposing letters that look similar, struggles with learning the names and sounds of letters, making frequent errors when reading aloud, and difficulty completing handwritten work.

Connect with your child’s teacher if you have any questions regarding possible reading difficulties.

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Boosting Literacy for All: RCSD’s Structured Literacy Approach Supports Diverse Learners

Key features of a structured literacy approach provide:

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