If elementary school students could be creatively taught to “read like a writer and write like a reader,” they would be better positioned to succeed.

That's the thinking of Running Brook Elementary School teachers Sara Wolfson and Jeanette Swank, who are using a recently awarded $10,000 national grant to help their fellow English language arts teachers learn to design literacy-based lessons that better engage students.

“We want to establish a model for student-centered lessons with the intention of rolling it out to all elementary schools in Howard County,” said Wolfson, a reading support teacher at the Columbia school.

The colleagues hope to create independent readers and writers as well as to increase rigor and raise the academic standards in English language arts.

“We want to get rid of worksheets and be more authentic,” said Swank, who teaches English language arts and social studies and serves as the school's third grade instructional team leader.

“We're hoping teachers will take these concepts back to the classroom to build academic achievement in reading, writing and critical thinking,” she said.

The inaugural Teacher Impact Grants were distributed in August by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a Virginia-based educational leadership organization now known simply as ASCD that selected 17 winners in 14 states from a field of 580 applications.

The winning one-year projects were chosen by a panel of current and former classroom teachers associated with ASCD, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the U.S. Department of Education.

A teaching team in Bethesda, which received the top-tier grant amount of $15,000, is the other winner from Maryland. The one-year awards totaled $190,000.

The grants reflect a growing movement across the country to empower teachers to play a central role in transforming the teaching profession, an ASCD spokesperson said.

The two colleagues already participate in a countywide professional learning community in which teachers work together to identify and solve problems. Now they will be forming a smaller group at Running Brook for five to 10 English language arts teachers in grades two through five.

Members will use a “learn, plan, act and reflect” strategy to identify what's working and what's not working in the classroom, Swank said.

The grant money will pay for conferences, speakers and materials and will also defray the expense of hiring substitute teachers so that full-time teachers can leave their classrooms on occasion to consult and observe other teachers during the school day.

“Teachers need time to collaborate,” Wolfson said, “and this grant will allow teachers to get to know other teachers' teaching styles.”

That increased familiarity will also foster the use of a common vocabulary of reading terms among teachers, she said.

Stephanie Milligan, coordinator of elementary language arts for the county's public schools, said the project will also help students to understand that what they learn at school is applicable to life.

“Sometimes students don't see the bigger picture,” she said. “But if we can capture the enthusiasm and commitment of our most reluctant learners, that will change the climate of learning.”

The collaborating teachers, whom Milligan dubbed “kindred spirits,” believe students' performance on standardized testing will also rise.

“We are also hoping that PARCC scores will be positively impacted, as those tests require a lot more writing,” Swank said of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers state assessments in English language arts and mathematics that in 2015 replaced the Maryland School Assessments.

“The reading was difficult and long and contained unfamiliar vocabulary,” she said of last year's PARCC tests.

Troy Todd, principal at Running Brook, described Wolfson and Swank as “phenomenal.”

“It's refreshing to see the innovative ideas they bring to the school,” he said. “I have always felt that education can and should be exciting and engaging, and this model will empower teachers and teacher leaders to promote that.”

Todd also extended an invitation to teachers from other county schools to visit Running Brook to “pick their brains” on how increasing student engagement also serves to increase student achievement.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for students,” Wolfson said of the program the grant will enable. “And that's what makes us teachers the happiest.”