Houston Elementary receives three-year literacy grant

Mt. Airy’s Henry H. Houston Elementary School has been chosen to receive a sought after literacy grant from Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI), a Center City based nonprofit. 

“We would not have received this grant if we didn’t already have high-caliber teachers in place,” said the school’s principal, Kimberly Newman. 

Newman, in her seventh year at the helm of Houston Elementary, added that members of the faculty have long been attending workshops put on by CLI before there was any notion that a grant was coming up.

The grant will kick in next fall and is a three-year program. CLI will install a “model classroom” for each grade level from kindergarten through third grade.

The model classrooms will “give insight into the best teaching strategies and classroom learning for teachers and children with little literacy experience,” according to the organization’s website. 

Each model classroom will employ a second teacher, provided by CLI, to work alongside faculty from Houston. 

“CLI workers and our teachers will meet each other multiple times before beginning the model classrooms and decide amongst themselves who will fit best together,” said Newman.

Houston faculty will in turn pass along along the teaching tools to neighboring elementary schools.