Congratulations to LeRea Low, Odyssey Elementary 5th/6th grade teacher, for being honored with Ogden School District's January Achieving Higher Award for demonstrating extraordinary skill and dedication to having a growth mindset that supports student academic goals and increases student learning.
Read her nomination below:
"Rea is a literacy extraordinaire! She is passionate about developing student literacy, and that dedication shows in every action she takes. Rea began her work at Odyssey as a half-time classroom teacher/half-time small group reading interventionist, working with students who demonstrated the most intensive need for literacy intervention. Each of those students made more than typical growth due to Rea's careful instruction, progress monitoring, and goal setting. More importantly, she helped each of those students find joy in reading. Since transitioning into a full-time 5th grade teaching position, Rea has applied that love of literacy into the classroom every day. Her students are carefully leveled into small reading groups, which allows her to provide targeted literacy instruction that meets the unique needs of each group. Observing Rea's small group literacy instruction is truly delightful. She thoughtfully engages each group in standards-based instruction that requires all students to listen, speak, think, read, and write based on the content they are covering. Rea also requires her students to apply the knowledge and skills they are learning. She guides her writing class through a sequence of research, drafting, editing, and publishing that culminates in an "Author's Tea," in which several guests have the opportunity to come to her classroom and listen to her students read their opinion essays on topics that matters to them. Rea knows that the key to developing lifelong readers and writers is to help each student find joy in literacy, and she uses that mindset to inform every decision she makes in the classroom.Rea is just as determined to help adult learners develop a love for literacy. As a new member of our Odyssey School Leadership Team this year, she was integral in the development and implementation of our upper grades literacy goal for the school plan. Rea helped to carefully analyze DIBELS and SAGE data during our needs assessment, and shared some of the classroom practices she found to be successful. Rea's thoughtful analysis and reflection informed our action step of the implementation of the QAR (Question Answer Relationship) strategy in all 4th-6th grade classrooms. Rea not only helped to develop the action step, she also led a faculty training for the 4th-6th grade teachers, and has been their "go-to" for any ideas or questions. Although we are only in our first year of implementation, we are hopeful that a targeted focus on comprehension in our upper grades will lead to improved literacy outcomes. Rea has been a driving force behind that focus." - Sonja Davidson