Principal Jeffrey

Reading Recovery Salutes Outstanding Principals

DeAn Jeffrey, principal
Fairview Elementary School
Sherman, TX

“Of course Reading Recovery is an effective intervention for 25 percent of our most at-risk first graders, but it’s so much more,” says Principal DeAn Jeffrey. “When trained Reading Recovery teachers serve general ed students they are able to apply the principles of Reading Recovery into general ed literacy instruction. This is sound educational practice that promotes literacy growth for a large number of students. ”

Guidance for Instructional Leadership
Reading Recovery gives Jeffrey guidance for instructional leadership, she adds. It takes the approach that because children are individuals, they take different pathways to learning. Therefore, teachers must be flexible in order to teach them. “We can’t take a cookie-cutter approach. We have to differentiate our instruction to meet the diverse needs of our learners,” Jeffrey says.

It’s the Way Things Are Done
Fairview Elementary school is a Title I school (62% free- and reduced-price lunch) serving 514 students in pre–K through fourth grades in Sherman, TX, a city of 39,500 located about 60 miles north of Dallas. A former Reading Recovery teacher, Jeffrey has been principal there for one year.

“Reading Recovery is the norm here,” she says.

After more than 10 years of using Reading Recovery, Fairview Elementary has three Reading Recovery teachers and four of their classroom teachers are Reading Recovery trained as well. “On the whole, the staff knows the value of Reading Recovery. We all know that learning to be a highly effective reading teacher is something that we are not prepared for in our teacher prep programs. Reading Recovery training provides teachers the additional knowledge and skills needed to produce positive student outcomes with literacy,” Jeffrey says.

Thinking Recovery
Jeffrey notes all successful schools place emphasis on analyzing the data on student performance to help guide campus instructional decisions. She adds that Fairview’s third- and fourth-grade reading and writing scores on Texas’ rigorous standardized test (TAKS) are consistently strong. “We feel that Reading Recovery has a significant impact on these scores,” she said.

“I think it should be called ‘Thinking Recovery,’” says Jeffrey. “Reading Recovery teaches kids to think and solve problems. Our goal is for these thinking skills to transfer across subject areas and into the students’ lives.”