Across the country, districts are investing in instruction aligned to the science of reading. But as we know, for many educators, the real challenge is translating policy into daily classroom practice. It’s one thing to prescribe an instructional framework and quite another to implement it well, consistently, and over the long term.

Stark County Community Unit School District 100 in Illinois is one of the districts committed to strengthening early literacy through evidence-based practices. One of its three schools, Stark County Elementary, recently became the proving ground of a literacy approach that prioritizes foundational skills instruction, with results that have teachers around the district excited to join in.

At the heart of the story is Mary Jo Groter, a first-grade teacher at Stark County Elementary. With experience teaching both early and upper elementary grades, Mary Jo has seen firsthand how instructional coherence shapes students’ reading trajectories over the years.

Her classroom offers a clear look at what happens when professional learning supports consistent practice, and how that investment shows up in both student confidence and measurable growth.

 

The Challenge

 

At the start of the 2024 school year, Mary Jo faced a familiar moment for many first-grade teachers. The Star Early Literacy data she collected with her students showed major deficits:

  • Just one of 13 students tested was performing at or above benchmark.

  • 7 students were “on watch” below benchmark, with scores below 775 on the assessment.

  • 4 required intervention, and one required urgent intervention.


Fortunately, by the time Mary Jo became a teacher, her district had already begun to implement Structured Literacy programming to address longstanding systemic obstacles. In the years before Stark County began to concentrate on the science of reading, phonics instruction often lacked coherence across grades. Mary had heard her colleagues discussing how, for years, many of them had been trying to blend multiple resources, layering pieces of phonics instruction onto core programs that didn’t always align.

“There was just kind of a disconnect,” Mary Jo explained. “Teachers were trying to add parts of Structured Literacy, but things didn’t flow very well.”

Reviewing the Star data, Mary Jo remembers thinking that the 2024-25 school year would be a formidable test for any Structured Literacy approach.

 

The Solution(s)

 

Mary Jo had already completed IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham Plus comprehensive training earlier in her journey, a turning point that fundamentally changed how she approached literacy instruction.

“Once I learned the program and did my own research, I just kind of fell in love with it,” she said. “Phonics instruction and the science of reading became my whole focus.”

Still, Mary Jo wanted to keep learning. In particular, she wanted to deepen her understanding of morphology so she could better support older students she tutored and be ready to extend learning for advanced readers in her first-grade classroom.

She enrolled in IMSE’s asynchronous Morphology+ course, drawn to its flexibility and depth. The format allowed her to learn at her own pace, revisit instructional routines as needed, and reflect on how strategies fit into her existing practice.

While morphology wasn’t yet a core component of her first-grade scope and sequence, the course strengthened Mary Jo’s instructional decision-making, especially around sentence construction, scaffolding, and extension for higher-level students.

“I didn’t really notice the full impact until I did everything from the beginning to the end, including the assessments,” Mary Jo said. “That’s when it really hit me how much growth was happening.”

 

IMSE classroom

 

Changing the Story

 

By the spring of 2025, new Star data confirmed the growth Mary Jo was seeing daily in her classroom:

  • Five of her 13 students were now reading at or above benchmark—up from just one in the fall.

  • The number of students requiring urgent intervention dropped to zero. 

  • Most of the remaining students shifted from intensive intervention to the “on watch” category.


Classroom-level assessments told the same story. IMSE sound and word-writing data showed steady improvement in sound-symbol correspondence, spelling accuracy, word complexity and phonetic representation. And during schoolwide data dives, first grade demonstrated the highest literacy growth across the elementary building, with Mary Jo’s class among the strongest performers.

“That was exciting,” she shared. “It was validating to know that what I’m doing is working and that it’s helping kids learn to read.”

Beyond the numbers, the changes were visible in everyday moments.

Students began independently applying decoding strategies, such as breaking apart multisyllabic words using hand motions without prompting.

“They’re not waiting for me to say, ‘Break the word apart,’” Mary Jo explained. “They just do it. And they’re excited that they can read those big words.”

One student’s growth stood out in particular. Entering the year, the student struggled to consistently connect sounds to letters. Through sustained, structured guidance—starting with summer tutoring and continuing into the school year—the student progressed to fluent reading with strong word recognition.

“That just shows the impact consistent instruction can have,” Mary Jo said. “It still amazes me.”

 

The Lesson for Literacy Leaders

 

Mary Jo’s story reflects a broader truth about literacy improvement. Change isn’t driven by mandates alone, but also (or perhaps mostly) by teachers who are well-supported to implement effective programming.

Flexible professional learning gave Mary Jo the space to deepen her practice, advocate for instructional consistency, and support colleagues. As a member of her school’s instructional leadership team, she now uses both research and data to push for strong foundational literacy instruction across grade levels.

“I feel like I finally have the data to back it up,” she said. “This is working.”

When professional learning aligns with classroom realities, students feel the impact right away. At Stark County Elementary, that alignment is turning into lasting literacy growth you can measure.

 


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