Reading Achievement Programs

RAP I

As part of our four-year funding agreement, The Hill Center was also charged with designing a continuation of the HELP project to address teacher training with a similar methodology, Reading Achievement Programs (RAP), in grades K-3 in all six Davie County elementary schools. Training began in the summer of 2005 for 26 elementary teachers, who began implementing the intensive reading intervention program when the school year began.

When RTI reported impressive results, the program was extended through 5^th grade at all six schools. As a result of the intensive nature of the program, often involving a 4-to-1 student-teacher ratio based on the students’ reading levels, reading specialists in the program began forming what are now known as “RAP Clinics.” These interventions included classroom teachers and assistant teachers under strict supervision of highly trained RAP teachers, providing group support to many more struggling readers in the early grades. Eventually, at least one elementary school used the same RAP Clinic model with community volunteers working under the guidance and supervision of a RAP-trained reading specialist. This approach enabled the schools to provide benefits from these proven reading interventions to many more children.

RAP II

On the heels of successful HELP and RAP I partnerships with The Hill Center and Davie County Schools, the Mebane Foundation made an additional commitment in 2007 of nearly $1 million for the design and implementation of a reading comprehension program, RAP II, for 6^th-8^th graders. In keeping with its efforts to involve community commitment and participation that ensure long-term sustainability, the Foundation used its funding as a challenge to the Davie County Commissioners, who, in a unanimous vote, approved $1 million to fund the program

along with 80 SMART Board purchases, six more audio-visual (distant learning) classrooms and the last of six pre-K technology-enhanced classrooms.

Launched in 2009, RAP II focuses on middle-school students with reading disabilities and features an additional reading-comprehension component. It also involves training three Davie County teachers in both RAP I and RAP II methodologies, providing mentors in the school system to help maintain the project after Foundation funding and external Hill Center training were no longer available.