The students are among many participants in the school's three-part reading program.

"Our whole intent was to address the needs of students in grades K-5," said Blossom Hill Principal Karen Miller.

The Soar to Success reading program, overseen by teacher Wendy Ottinger, is a research-based intervention and comprehension program for students in fourth and fifth grades who are reading below grade level. For second- and third-graders at Blossom Hill, instructional aide John Lux and parent volunteers lead the Read Naturally program, which works to improve reading refinement and fluency. Certificated teacher Heide Medina runs an early reading intervention program for kindergarten and first-graders, focusing on phonics and beginning word skills. Each program builds on one another, Medina said.

"The whole idea is you put children in these programs and it gives them the boost they need and it supports them," Miller said. "It's a pre-intervention model. These are often the children who need a little extra support. They don't have reading disabilities."

Medina said the youngsters she helps must qualify into her program and are often recommended for the additional help by their regular classroom teacher.

"Any child can enter the program or exit at any time in the year," she said, adding she currently sees about 18 children. "The goal is to get them exited out as soon as possible."

She helps students with reading strategies and phonemic or sound awareness, either one-on-one or in small groups, in 30 minute sessions three times a week.

"It's targeting those kids who could fall through the cracks," she said. "This is just an intervention to give them the support and the skills they need to be successful readers."

Lux, a retired deputy sheriff with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, works part-time for the school district, running the Read Naturally program, working yard duty and engaging students in physical education. His position is funded through Blossom Hill's Home and School Club.

He works with two to five students at a time as they pick a story, write a prediction of what will happen and then do "a cold read," where they are timed at reading the story orally and have points deducted for their mistakes. Next, the students read the story along with an audio tape three times, and then they practice reading the story without the tape. They answer questions about what they've read, and then they read the story again. To pass the final read, a student must make three or fewer errors than they made on the cold read, speak with expression and answer the comprehension questions correctly. The students also graph their progress and reading level abilities with each story, and every child always meets or exceeds their goal on the final read.

"The focus of this program is to increase fluency," Lux said. "The program is designed to work with kids who are initially below grade level and move them up to grade level in fluency."

He said gradually students learn to use more words to express the story synopsis, and he's been tracking the program's great success since last year. Parent volunteers also help to staff the program, and Lux sees 24 students. Each student received 35 minutes of attention two times a week, which is an extra 70 minutes a week of personalized reading attention that they wouldn't receive in their regular classrooms. It's viewed as an enhancement of their regular classroom curriculum, Lux said. And the sticker at the end of each lesson, along with Lux's positive attitude and persistence, makes it an enjoyable experience.

"The kids want to be here," Lux said. "They don't view this as a remediation program. It's not viewed as a pull-out penalty. They have fun here. It's a very structured program, so there's no dead time for them to get caught talking to their neighbor."

Grace said she's watching herself become better at reading.

"I like that he never gets impatient with us when we get a word wrong," she said. "I like doing the reading and being timed."

Ottinger also works to make reading comprehension in her program fun for students. She's trying to teach students strategies to help them become better at reading, such as clarifying, questioning, predicting, modeling, summarizing and practicing, as well as reciprocal teaching where students do the instruction. She works with groups of seven students.

"They are smaller groups, so the students receive more attention. It's more focused, and they have more of an opportunity to participate," she said.

Ottinger said by fourth and fifth grade, students know when they are struggling with reading and appreciate the extra attention.

"I love working in a small group. It's really awesome to be teaching them the strategies they are going to use—and watching them progress," she said.