Just a few years ago, many fourth-graders came to Hannah Wheeler’s classroom in the Peres K–8 School reading at a kindergarten level. “I felt lost with how to help them,” she says.
Today it’s a different story. A schoolwide SIPPS® implementation is helping readers succeed at Peres, a Title I public school in Richmond, California, where 95 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 85 percent are English learners.
In this interview, Hannah describes the blocking schedule Peres uses to implement SIPPS, shares data about her students’ growth as readers, and explains how SIPPS demonstrates the importance of small-group instruction driven by assessment data.
Most important of all, Hannah reports, “Since implementing the program, I have witnessed firsthand how SIPPS is strengthening our pursuit towards educational equity.”
Please tell us a little about yourself, your school and district, and the students that you serve.
My name is Hannah Wheeler and I am a fourth-grade teacher at Peres K–8 School in Richmond, California. Our school is part of the West Contra Costa Unified School District.
I joined Teach for America and began teaching at Peres after graduating in May of 2020 from the University of California, Berkeley. During my first two years teaching, I earned a master’s degree in Education, with an emphasis in Social Emotional Learning, and I obtained a California Preliminary Multiple Subject Teaching Credential.
Peres K–8 is an inner-city school located in Richmond’s Iron Triangle, an area notorious for its deep history of racial marginalization. Peres is a Title I public school where 95 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 85 percent of students are English learners. The motto “Think You Can, Work Hard, Get Smart” lines the walls of our school, and our students embody this mindset. They are resilient in the face of adversity, courageous, and eager to learn.
What is the most rewarding part of being an educator for you? What do you especially enjoy about your current role?
The most rewarding part of being an educator is watching students build their social and emotional skills and academic confidence. In my classroom, all students are taught to embrace a growth mindset and embrace challenges as learning opportunities.
The most rewarding part of being an educator is watching students build their social and emotional skills and academic confidence.
In upper elementary, students begin to experience more social anxiety and self doubt, just as academics start to become more demanding. Because of this, the fourth- and fifth-grade years are an imperative time to explicitly teach social and emotional skills. These skills are necessary to conquer challenges, build positive relationships, and manage emotions.
As a fourth-grade teacher, it is gratifying to observe students resolving conflict with their peers and embracing productive struggle in their academic pursuits throughout the course of the year.
How long have you been implementing SIPPS? Tell us about the initial pilot.
I began implementing SIPPS in August of 2022. The reading coach at our school noticed an achievement gap in foundational reading skills for our English learners, African-American students, and IEP students. Our reading coach found SIPPS while researching programs that would provide structured small-group intervention to increase reading proficiency.
A small team of Peres teachers began a slow roll-out of SIPPS during the 2022–2023 school year in which we piloted the curriculum at the classroom level. During this time, I saw immense potential in the program, but struggled to find adequate time to consistently fit the daily lessons into my schedule. I knew that for the program to be successfully implemented, our teachers would need more tools for integration and structured time within the school day to administer the lessons.
When the schoolwide implementation of SIPPS began, Peres adopted a blocking schedule. Please tell us how that works.
In August 2023, Peres began a schoolwide implementation of SIPPS. We adopted a blocking schedule where students in grades 1–5 are assigned to a specific reading class based on results from their SIPPS Placement Assessment.
During this 40-minute block, teachers provide SIPPS instruction to students that require intervention, and electives are offered to students that test out of the SIPPS Placement Assessment.
This year, I am teaching SIPPS Plus to a class of 30 students who range between first and fifth grade. Within this class, students are further divided into three flexible ability groups based on how they are progressing through the mastery tests. Students in each group fall within a different sub-section of SIPPS Plus and receive targeted instruction each day.
You have been implementing SIPPS since 2022. What do you appreciate about the program?
I truly believe that SIPPS is empowering my students to read.
Our school community serves a diverse student population of low-income, first-generation, and educationally-disadvantaged students. Prior to implementing SIPPS, our school did not have a targeted reading intervention program, and many students came to my fourth-grade classroom reading at a kindergarten level. I felt lost with how to help them.
My time teaching at Peres has provided me with a deep understanding of the inequities present in our education system and the immense need for comprehensive reading intervention programs. I firmly believe that every child has endless potential if given the opportunities they need to thrive.
Through a targeted intervention program like SIPPS, students are given the support they need to learn to read. Since implementing the program, I have witnessed firsthand how SIPPS is strengthening our pursuit towards educational equity.
Since implementing the program, I have witnessed firsthand how SIPPS is strengthening our pursuit towards educational equity.
What do your Peres colleagues (and students!) appreciate about SIPPS?
Here is some feedback from colleagues and one student as well:
- Cesar (Fourth-Grade Student): SIPPS has been helping me with spelling. The pictures [sound-spelling cards] help me see the letters when I am trying to sound out a tricky word.
- Kelly Fimbres (Instructional Coach): I love the fact that the SIPPS program provides our students with instruction to help improve their ability to read fluently. I believe that by using the SIPPS program, our students’ reading success will improve. The program includes phonological awareness, phonics, sight words, and fluency, and teaching these together and making the lessons engaging will support our students’ achievement in their reading.
- Ms. Hansen (Second-Grade Teacher): I have noticed students using blending strategies we use during small-group instruction to break down difficult words along with sounding out words during journal writing. SIPPS is a wonderful way to review and learn high-frequency words along with different sounds and patterns. Having this ongoing consistent time weekly with small groups has been extremely successful for student mastery.
What have you noticed about your students’ learning and engagement? If a particular story from your classroom comes to mind, please share it!
I have noticed significant growth in my student’s foundational reading skills since implementing the SIPPS curriculum.
Our school administers the I-Ready diagnostic tri-annually to track students’ growth in reading and math. The Typical Growth metric represents the average annual growth for a student in their baseline placement level.
Based on the mid-year I-Ready Reading Assessment, the median percent progress towards Typical Growth for my class was 125 percent. In comparison, last year, my class’ median percent progress towards Typical Growth based on their mid-year scores was around 50 percent. This is a 75 percent increase in growth compared to last year!
Since implementing the SIPPS program, I have observed students who were continuously reading two grade levels below average not only progress towards grade-level reading, but also grow their academic confidence.
Since implementing the SIPPS program, I have observed students who were continuously reading two grade levels below average not only progress towards grade-level reading, but also grow their academic confidence.
Students that were previously reluctant to participate in whole-group lessons now consistently raise their hands to read aloud and are eager to contribute in class discussions. They have become leaders in their small-group projects, applying the skills they are learning in SIPPS to the EL Education curriculum.
Additionally, I have observed students improve their ability to sound out and correctly spell complex words using the skills and tools learned during SIPPS instruction. For example, students regularly reference the spelling-sound wall cards during daily journal entries, EL Education lessons, and independent work time.
You shared that 85 percent of Peres students are English learners. How has SIPPS specifically impacted these students?
In my classroom, I’ve observed English learners effectively engage in SIPPS instruction, where clear language, consistency, and choral responses ensure accessibility for all students regardless of their individual backgrounds or needs.
The concise and straightforward language used in instruction allows English learners to comprehend new sound-spelling relationships, internalize correction routines, and successfully participate in activities such as guided spelling and phonological awareness.
The consistent structure of daily lessons aids students in understanding expectations, directions, and lesson pacing, thereby reducing confusion. The incorporation of choral responses in daily lessons fosters a collective sense of security and predictability, enhancing student engagement and confidence in their academic abilities.
This increased confidence extends beyond SIPPS instruction, encouraging English learners to actively participate across various content areas.
Furthermore, I’ve witnessed SIPPS instruction enhancing English learners’ vocabulary through daily sight-word activities and visual representations of sound-spelling patterns.
Each day, we review high-frequency sight words and introduce new ones within a sentence to bolster English learners’ vocabulary and language development. Sound-spelling patterns reinforced by visual aids such as sound-spelling wall cards are also introduced and reviewed daily, offering English learners both auditory and visual learning opportunities to acquire new vocabulary.
How has SIPPS affected or changed your own teaching and learning?
SIPPS has fundamentally affected my own teaching by allowing me to see firsthand the importance of small-group instruction that is driven by assessment data. Daily small-group instruction provides me the opportunity to understand students’ learning styles and adjust my instruction to target specific learning needs.
Daily small-group instruction provides me the opportunity to understand students’ learning styles and adjust my instruction to target specific learning needs.
Additionally, SIPPS mastery tests positively impact my ability to accurately adjust my flexible ability groupings based on the results of these assessments. I can use the assessment data to identify the students that are not grasping a certain skill and require reteach of a given lesson.
I can also use this information to regroup students into higher leveled groups when they demonstrate mastery. This provides students with targeted reading instruction that directly addresses their areas of growth and gives students more opportunity to excel.
What advice or insights would you share with an educator who is new to implementing SIPPS?
Organization and preparation are essential to successfully implement SIPPS. To achieve this, I suggest setting up a specific area of your classroom that is conducive to effective small-group instruction.
Here are some examples of how I set myself up for success:
- At the beginning of the year, I arranged three desks into a L-shape that faces the Promethean Board. Each morning, I project the PDF versions of the daily lessons found on Collaborative Classroom’s Learning Portal. Using the premade PDFs saves me an inordinate amount of preparation time, which as an educator is invaluable.
- Because this program requires use of many physical materials, I recommend organizing a rolling storage cart with all your materials so they are ready to go for the lesson. In the rolling cart, I include review sight-word cards and review spelling-sound cards for each small group. In addition, mastery tests, word-work packets, pencils, and clipboards are organized into separate drawers of the cart. Each small group has a designated book bin that contains a folder for every student with copies of the spelling-sound wall cards, sight-word dictionaries, and fluency records.
- It is imperative to have the spelling-sound wall cards on display in the small-group area in order to easily reference them during the lesson. I have found success organizing these cards into groups of short-vowel sounds, long-vowel sounds, ending sounds, and consonants/consonant digraphs.
Related:
Learn more about SIPPS in other California schools and community organizations.
Read another blog: Getting Reading Right: Supporting California Educators in the Shift to Structured Literacy, with Leslie Zoroya of LACOE
Read another blog: SIPPS Tutoring Success in Texas: An Interview with Literacy Now