Wilson Reading Founders Visit Wylandville to
Celebrate Literacy Success
Wylandville Elementary recently welcomed Barbara and Ed Wilson, founders of the Wilson Reading System, to celebrate the District’ s success in structured literacy instruction. anon-Mac CANON-MAC SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS
During a national literacy panel, Principal Shannon Balch highlighted Wylandville’ s integration of Wilson’ s phonics-based approach with knowledge-building practices to develop a comprehensive literacy model. Impressed by Canon-McMillan’ s framework, the Wilsons expressed interest in visiting the school firsthand.
“ Having the founders of the Wilson Reading Program here in our school was incredibly special,” said Balch.“ Barbara and Ed have dedicated their lives to structured literacy and to helping children learn to read.”
Structured literacy is at the core of instruction at Wylandville and the Canon-McMillan School District as a whole. The School’ s model includes FUNdations as the core curriculum: two research-based Wilson products, along with the Wilson Reading System, Fun in Focus and FUNdations for intervention— a specialized program for students needing additional support. These programs create a multi-tiered framework that meets every learner where they are.
“ FUNdations serves as our primary phonics instruction,” said second-grade teacher Bruce Grice.“ It focuses on decoding, encoding and sight-word recognition, while Geodes provides meaningful, decodable texts that build background knowledge and tie directly to what we teach. The combination has completely transformed how our students learn to read.”
Building on more than a decade of success in kindergarten, the Wilson Reading System and FUNdations program was expanded to first and second grade as part of the District’ s core curriculum. Balch explained that since then, most of the District’ s reading and learning support teachers have become Wilson Dyslexia Practitioners.
“ The beauty of structured literacy is that it starts at the very base and builds from there,” Balch said.“ Students can look at a word, identify syllable types and explain why words work the way they do. That kind of knowledge builds real confidence.”
Canon-McMillan continues to see remarkable results, with 96 % of fourth-grade students reading on or above grade level.
“ Between the data and the joy you see in our students as they learn, it’ s clear that this approach works, and having Barbara and Ed Wilson here to celebrate that was the perfect full-circle moment,” said Balch.
She said that the success of structured literacy stems from strong support across all levels of the District, including administration, the school board, reading specialists and classroom teachers who implement it seamlessly each day.
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