Raising the bar
Apr. 28—Striving to enhance literacy rates for early pre-K students led to Dr. Penny Thompson's recognition as as Lebanon Special School District's instructor of the year.
While she said that the validation for her work is satisfying, ensuring that young learners in the district have the tools to be better readers and writers is what drives her the most.
"We are a smaller district, so each of the instructional coordinators at the central office have several different hats we wear, but one of my big roles is in literacy," Thompson said. "My PhD is in literacy. It is very much my passion, as well as working with early grades."
Thompson serves as the pre-K director and instructional coordinator for the LSSD. Much of her work focuses on younger grade levels.
"Three years ago, the state awarded us a grant for pre-K," Thompson said. "I hired a pre-K coach, one of our teachers, to come out of the classroom and be a pre-K coach for literacy. We worked that year implementing a sounds-first approach to literacy."
A sound-first approach tackles literacy through identification of phonemes, or what a lot of people think of as syllables.
"It has earned the respect of the state department to the degree that they have awarded us numerous grants to work with our early grades," Thompson said. "That recognition spurred on another grant from the state to work with kindergarten through second grade. It also positioned us to become one of five districts chosen in the state to document our journey with literacy and what we are doing."
Thompson indicated that she was proud that her work is lending itself to instruction outside of the LSSD.
Her team has gone into classrooms and video-taped teachers instructing literacy lessons, as well as talking about their journey of implementing programs through interviews. Those videos are now on a state education website for anyone to view.
Being recognized for the value of the work means a lot to Thompson, but there are other qualitative benchmarks she uses for success.
"To hear a teacher tell me that they can see such a difference in the students coming to be this year because of the curriculum that we now have and the training that we now have is just great," Thompson said. "I have been hearing that a lot lately, that the kindergarteners are coming in with far more skills than they have had in the past."
Thompson also currently sits on the Tennessee Early Literacy Board.
LSSD Assistant Director Becky Kegley said that Thompson's "desire to promote both reading and a love for books has impacted early learners and their teachers."
