Ready, Set...Rest (and Recharge!)

As the school year wraps up, we’re sharing a few highlights and reminders to help you recharge, and get a jumpstart on next year.

Get Ready for Fall with Live Virtual STARI Professional Learning This Summer

Our summer PL series is underway and it's not too late to join!

This live virtual 3-part professional learning series will guide you through everything you need to confidently launch STARI this Fall.

Cost: $375

Part 1: June 24, 8am-2pm PT or July 29, 9am-3pm ET

Part 2: June 26, 8am-2pm PT or July 31, 9am-3pm ET

Part 3: TBD date and time

STARI Hits the Road: Highlights from LAUSD’s Secondary Literacy Intervention Symposium

The STARI team traveled to sunny LA to connect with nearly 90 LAUSD educators at the Secondary Literacy Intervention Symposium. In our session, Help Struggling Adolescent Readers Thrive, teachers explored engaging, research-backed strategies to build fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and reading stamina.

We were inspired by their adaptive expertise: constantly balancing student needs with curriculum demands. Participants brainstormed ways to integrate these practices into their current settings, asking forward-thinking questions like:

• How can fluency-building strategies strengthen comprehension in science classes?
• How might partner reading support decoding interventions while extending comprehension work?

Thanks to the passionate LAUSD educators who spent their Saturday with us, and embodied the event's theme: “Read to Lead, Teach to Inspire.”

New Study in JREE: STARI’s Positive Impact on Middle School Literacy

A newly published study led by SERP's Director of Literacy, Margaret Troyer, demonstrates that STARI can improve literacy outcomes for middle school students. Conducted in a district where only 25% of students typically scored proficient, the study found that students who participated in STARI outperformed their peers on state ELA tests, achieving gains that surpassed the estimated learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full study or 1-pager.

We’re still celebrating this STARI success story from Illinois!

Last month, we highlighted this amazing result from Janet Barnhart and her team at Prophetstown High School/PLT Middle School:

“80.95% of our students in our intervention increased by one or more proficiency levels on our state test. We are so happy with the program and its results! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

If your students made big strides with STARI this year, we want to hear from you too!

Share your STARI success in this quick form. Your story could be featured in an upcoming newsletter to inspire other educators!

What We've Been Reading: Summer Edition

Here are some recommendations from the STARI Team: 

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

This semi-autobiographical piece provides insight on life in the 1930s in Harlem, and epicenter of arts and culture. 

- Josie, Program Assistant

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

Teachers don't take enough rest. This book talks about the power of rest and how healing it can be.

- Kala, Literacy Specialist

There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone

This is a fantastic though heartbreaking read. It follows four homeless families, and reads like a novel - so engaging - but also lots of information about homelessness in America.

- Margaret, Director of Literacy

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

Historical fiction that explores language, power, and gender during the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary. The OED took 70 years to complete and though the public could submit words, decisions about what counted as "suitable" were made by a privileged group of male scholars against the backdrop of the women’s suffrage and workers' rights movements.

- Emily, Literacy Specialist

Thank you for your commitment to supporting adolescent readers!

If you have any questions, reach out to us at info@serpinstitute.org.

- The STARI Team at SERP