Our mission at Loudoun County Public Schools is to teach our students to read and comprehend written text so that they may become independent readers and writers, as well as life long learners.  At the elementary level, a variety of instructional methodologies are employed to assist our students in literacy acquisition. 

We are pleased to have the opportunity to help children at Arcola Elementary School develop the skills they need to become lifelong readers!  We will work with classroom teachers, the principal, and other specialists, to provide the most appropriate reading instruction for your child.

A balanced, or comprehensive, literacy approach is used to teach reading.  This includes shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading as well as read-alouds, literature study and explicit skills lessons.  This approach to instruction involves teaching children to use the three cueing systems: meaning, sentence structure, and graphophonics in learning to read. Instruction integrates reading with thinking, writing, listening, and speaking.  

     Arcola Elementary became a Steps to Literacy© school during the 2008-2009 school year.  We are thrilled with the progress the children have made using this model.  This is a K-2 instructional model based on best practices in literacy instruction. 

 Reading Specialist Responsibilities

   The reading specialist will monitor the implementation of assisted reading programs, interpret student’s performance regarding strengths/weaknesses, recommend prescriptive procedures for specific weaknesses, assist in the grouping of students and team with a classroom teacher to instruct students.  The reading specialist will work individually, in a small group or with a whole class to provide services to the students in need.