BUCKFIELD – When Dan Allen was hired last year as a part-time literacy coach for Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, his primary job was to train teachers to make literacy strategies more comprehensive to the students. The program was so successful that this year as a full-time coach, he teaches students and trains teachers.

Allen meets with students who are two levels behind in reading skills and helps them to decode information. He does this is several ways.

His emphasis is on helping kids assimilate what they know about a given subject, what they expect to learn from a reading about the subject and then express what they have actually learned after the reading assignment. He teaches two classes that run 75 minutes a session.

Allen said students are exposed to the skills of reading all through elementary school, but the stories are easy to follow and don’t require in-depth thinking skills. There are a few kids who don’t always understand how to take a story apart to predict, question and summarize important facts. These kids who fall through the holes, so to speak, are ones who need special training on how to think, he said.

Allen accomplishes this through various methods. He praises the Lexia program on computer phonics. The program actually searches out holes in reading ability and gives data for improvement. He uses the Northwest Education Association Language and Math Usage diagnostic test.

Allen observes all new teachers six times during the year and has pre- and post-conferences and regular observations and conferences with all teachers.

“If a kid goes out the door being able to read and understand what they have read, we are successful,” Allen said.