The Indiana Reading Academy

Project Director: Mary Beth Hines

2004-05 was the inaugural year of the Indiana Reading Academy project, a collaborative venture involving IU, IUPUI, the Indiana Dept of Education, Voyager U, and over 700 teachers from 50 Reading First schools across the state. Reading First is a program that earmarks funds for schools with reading assessment scores that fall below the levels called for under the No Child Left Behind guidelines. Once designated, the Reading First schools receive funding for professional development, and the teachers' work with that program is designed to improve students' performance in reading. Last year IU and IUPUI faculty offered two graduate courses organized around one Voyager U program, and this year IU and IUPUI faculty will offer four graduate courses based upon two Voyager U programs.

During the first year of the program, this project involved 725 teachers in 50 schools, each teacher completing professional development work in reading, thereby earning six graduate credit hours from IU or IUPUI. Although registration is still going on, to date over 240 teachers have re-enrolled for year two of the program, and over 125 new teacher participants have signed on to begin in year one of the program, involving 42 schools.

The team spent the spring and summer creating two graduate courses for the year two participants, aiming to foster an inquiry stance to reading education, as requested by the Indiana Department of Education (IN DOE). Working with Voyager U representatives and the IN DOE, the leadership team has developed an online inquiry project cycle designed to enable each teacher to formulate and complete a teacher-research project issuing from the participant's own questions about the teaching and learning of reading in his or her classroom.