Marlington reports early gains from new K–5 literacy program; high school to offer college-credit engineering pathway

Marlington Local School District curriculum director Renee Kaley told the school board on March 13 that the district’s K–5 rollout of the Benchmark Advance literacy program has produced early improvements in phonics, vocabulary and writing and that the administration will ask the board in April to adopt Benchmark Advance for sixth grade.

Kaley said the district bought Benchmark Advance along with professional learning and coaching and has used grade-level collaboration and on-site coaching since September. “Our overall goal was to improve our literacy outcomes and instructional consistency across not only all grade levels, but across all buildings as well,” Kaley said. She added that early fall-to-winter assessment data show fewer students needing urgent intervention in K–2 phonics and stronger comprehension and writing in grades 3–5.

The district reported teachers are using annotated text and more rigorous vocabulary instruction; Kaley said even students who previously struggled are…