The Houston Independent School District is expanding its districtwide literacy initiative to the high school level with the upcoming launch of Literacy Empowered.
Literacy Empowered will train high school teachers on the implementation of best practices for improving literacy in four core content areas.
The training — offered to high school principals and teachers — is being offered during the week of July 17 at Ortiz Middle School. During the training, participants will explore and apply the elements of Literacy Empowered, which include disciplinary content, literacy best practices, hands-on experiences, and instructional technology.
In addition to the training, the $6 million program will provide all high schools with books and digital classroom libraries. Specifically, 275-290 books for English and Language Arts classrooms and 100-250 book club books for other classrooms.
Literacy Empowered is a key component and outgrowth of the district’s Literacy by 3 initiative, which was launched in 2014 and aims to have all students reading and writing on grade level at the end of third grade by 2019. That program was expanded in 2016 to the middle school level with the launch of Literacy in the Middle.