Friendship Public Charter Schools, Washington, D.C.
100% Trained: How a Successful Implementation Brought the Science of Reading to Secondary Schools
“I love that there’s a variety of courses we’ve been able to select from, that best supports what our goals are for this particular school year. So, even though there are about 50-plus courses, Jessie and I sat down and worked on a Scope and Sequence aligned to our goals for this particular year..” —Tiffany Goodman, Director of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, Friendship Public Charter Schools
In 2021, The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) in Washington, D.C., published its vision for literacy that included traditional and chartered public schools. Following the OSSE recommendations, Friendship Public Charter Schools CEO Patricia Brantley and CAO Vielka Scott-Marcus developed a local literacy plan for Friendship in collaboration with key stakeholders. This literacy plan integrated the guiding principles for literacy instruction and literacy interventions to support all students in becoming successful readers and writers.
Friendship’s literacy goal? One hundred-percent of teachers trained in the science of reading literacy strategies for vocabulary and comprehension.
Tiffany Goodman started at Friendship as director of multi-tiered systems of support in 2023, overseeing eight middle schools and high schools across the charter network.
While Friendship’s local literacy plan includes supplementary literacy programs like Lexia® Core5® Reading and Lexia® PowerUp Literacy®, Goodman was focused on setting her secondary school educators up for success with science of reading-based professional learning. For that, Goodman turned to Lexia Aspire® Professional Learning.
Based on the science of reading, Aspire is designed to meet the needs of all educators teaching students in grades 4–8, from the content-area and classroom educators to interventionists and ELA educators.
“Lexia Aspire is just amazing. It directly aligns to the goals we have in the district for the science of reading—it exceeded our expectations,” Goodman said.
![Lexia Aspire Professional Learning Logo](/Assets/img/blank.gif)
Science of Reading-Based Professional Learning for All Educators Grades 4–8
Lexia Aspire® Professional Learning (4-8)