The Lesley University Literacy Collaborative is a comprehensive model for school reform between Lesley University and elementary schools. It is a long-term professional development program designed to provide a school-wide approach to literacy instruction in kindergarten through grade six. The goal of the program is to assure successful literacy achievement for every child. Research has proven that effective implementation of Literacy Collaborative will enable schools to increase their students' reading and writing performance and, just as important, meet their state's language and literacy standards.

The Literacy Collaborative (LC) model includes all of the essential components of school reform organized in several major categories; language and literacy instructional framework, Reading Recovery, school-based leadership team, professional development, home school connection and assessment and research.

The language and literacy framework is a child centered literature based approach to teaching reading and writing. The instructional framework consists of a number of contexts that provide multiple opportunities of authentic reading and writing. A key principle of instruction is that students engage in meaningful experiences that range from a high level of teacher support to independence. Below is a breakdown of framework components and how they are incorporated into the school day:

Phase 1-2 - In the 2002-2003 academic school year the Benjamin Banneker Public Charter School implemented phases I and II of Literacy Collaborative. During Phase I, the primary and intermediate leadership teams attended training at Lesley University. This training allowed the teams to begin the necessary planning for the school wide implementation of Literacy Collaborative. Phase 2, required a primary and intermediate coordinator to participate in an intensive year long training while also teaching the literacy framework in two classrooms.

Phase 3 - The initial training class occurred during the 2003-2004 academic school year. This phase consisted of 40-hours of an intense in-service course that required teachers to implement the literacy framework daily. In addition, all classroom teachers participated in regularly scheduled coaching and analysis of instruction with the literacy coordinators.

Phase 4 - During the 2004-2005 academic school year all trained teachers in K-6 continued to participate in 20 hours of ongoing professional development and at this time, we began our second initial training class. This group consisted of 5 new classroom teachers, 2 Title I specialists, 2 SPED teachers and several teacher associates. Additionally, the K-6 school-based leadership teams merged and continued to reassesses the school needs and develop their leadership roles.

Phase 5 and Beyond - Since 2006 all trained teachers in K-6 continue to participate in 20 hours of ongoing professional development. This onsite professional development allows staff to reassess the schools needs, examine student data and develop their leadership roles.

  "The systematic collection and analysis of student assessment data is essential to successful whole school change. When data is methodically and consistently collected and analyzed, the results show indicators of effective implementation and point to areas that need further development. More importantly, systematized data collection generates in-depth performance information about every student to help schools identify trends in program effectiveness. Specifically, a number of informal literacy assessments are administered in the fall of each grade and a standardized assessment is administered in the spring of grade two and the spring of grade five.

The data collected from the fall assessments show student achievement in reading, writing, word analysis, and spelling skills. This enables schools to track cohorts of children as they move through the primary and intermediate grades. Schools also use the data to look at their Literacy Collaborative implementation and set goals for the future of the program. The standardized assessment measures student achievement at the end of the primary and intermediate programs. The standardized test also allows Literacy Collaborative schools to compare their achievement in reading and language arts to national performance.

Data are analyzed on a national level by Lesley University and The Ohio State University to monitor performance in Literacy Collaborative schools across the country. Results are reported annually and data are used to improve the delivery of the model and to work with individual schools that need additional support." B, John. ("Research"> http://www.lesley.edu/crr/lc_research.html )