“Intensive and Impactful” Professional Development for Winthrop Special Educators

Professional development grants from the Melrose Education Foundation support Melrose educators to pursue professional learning to bring new and improved teaching strategies to their classrooms. The Orton Gillingham and Beyond grant did just that for two special education teachers at the Winthrop School. The teachers, Michele Burke and Jenna Lemusta, shared this summary of the impact of their grant. We are excited for them to finish their practicum this June and to receive their official Orton Gillingham certification. 

“We would like to extend our utmost gratitude to the Melrose Education Foundation for supporting our professional goal of becoming certified in Orton Gillingham. We are more than half way through the Institute of Multisensory Education’s Orton Gillingham Practicum. In October, we each chose a group of students that were identified as being in need of reading intervention as our practicum students. In addition to working with these students on a daily basis, we have submitted weekly lesson plans and observations, tracked student growth, engaged in book studies and content modules, and applied supervisor feedback to our teaching process. 

The practicum has proven to be intensive, impactful, and has already begun to significantly inform our teaching practices in the classroom. It has also led to significant student gains. Our students have shown improvement on district-wide assessments from the beginning-of-year to the middle-of-year. In the span of a few short months, we have seen our students grow entire grade levels in the domains of phonological awareness, phonics, and high frequency words, in many cases moving from needs improvement to approaching or on grade level. They are all showing mastery of taught skills, increased enjoyment of and fluency in reading, and are actively engaged in their learning. We are on track to finish our practicum in June, and soon after, will apply for our Orton Gillingham certification. We are incredibly grateful to the Melrose Education Foundation for the invaluable support they have provided us. We look forward to applying the learning that we have acquired through this practicum process, and providing this impactful support to students in the future, so that all our students in the Melrose community can experience reading success!” – Michele Burke and Jenna Lemusta, Winthrop School Special Education Teachers