The NC State College of Education’s Wolfpack WORKS literacy initiative has received a three-year, $12,266,816 grant from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to expand its support of beginning K-2 teachers and improve early literacy outcomes across North Carolina.
“We are grateful to have the support of this grant from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to expand Wolfpack WORKS and to provide ongoing assistance to beginning K-2 teachers as they help their students improve reading and writing,” said Mary Ann Danowitz, dean of the NC State College of Education. “About 60 percent of North Carolina’s fourth graders read at a proficient level; we want all fourth graders reading at a proficient level because we know how important early literacy is to lifelong success and opportunity. We also know that essential to improving early literacy is improving classroom instruction, which is exactly what Wolfpack WORKS does.”
Wolfpack WORKS began in summer 2018 with an initial one-year, $5,894,541 grant from DPI to provide intensive, literacy-specific induction support to all first- and second-year K-2 teachers in 16 high-need school districts in North Carolina (Anson, Bertie, Caswell, Duplin, Edgecombe, Granville, Greene, Halifax, Kannapolis City, Martin, Nash-Rocky Mount, Northampton, Vance, Warren, Washington, Wilson schools).
The new three-year, $12.26 million grant will allow Wolfpack WORKS to expand its support to include all third-year K-2 teachers in partner school districts, in addition to first- and second-year teachers. This will bring the number of beginning teachers the program is expected to serve up from 170 to over 240. The three-year timeline also includes expanded plans to evaluate the program’s impact on participating teachers’ early literacy knowledge and practice and their students’ reading achievement in the short- and long-term.
Originally published Mar. 18, 2019.