Eva Gordon Elementary is in the second year of its  Mississippi Reading First Grant. Winona Dykes is the Literacy Coach.  She facilitates weekly grade level peer coaching study team meetings; collects, analyzes, and distributes data to help focus our teachers' instructional activities. Mrs. Dykes conducts teacher study group sessions on scientifically based reading research; does regular classroom observations; organizes students' school assessment data to track progress over time; attends regional and state instructional meetings; and facilitates extended instructional opportunities. 

    The Reading First Grant provides assistance to state and local education agencies to apply scientifically based reading research.  The program's focus is on the five essential elements of proven reading instruction which constitutes a formula that all Mississippi children have the teaching and the tools they need to read well by the end of the third grade.
      Mrs. White, principal of Eva Gordon Elementary, has made improving children's reading achievement a center piece of our school's education reform agenda, and she was instrumental in securing this grant.