ABSTRACT
This article describes a university/high school partnership in which minority-serving university candidates in a Master of Science in Reading Education program taught predominantly Haitian students in an afterschool, service-learning, literacy practicum. The candidates used culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) to build relationships and increase community understanding along with a problem-solving approach to implement a legislated focus on students who have not made adequate literacy achievement progress by the Florida Department of Education. With the acronym ICEL X RIOT, meaning that teachers need to consider their instruction (I), the curriculum (C), the environment (E), and the learner (L) before they review records (R), conduct interviews with stakeholders (I), make in-class observations (O), and test (T), to incorporate school and individual assessment data and multiple strategies to differentiate lesson plans in teacher professional development. Examples of students’ scores on standardized testing, the strategies in differentiated lessons that were designed and taught by candidates, and the outcome data of the case study students show increased reading achievement on standardized assessments. Future suggestions for improving the practicum are shared.
