West Secret Stories

Students at West Elementary have a secret, but don‘t worry, they don’t mind telling it to you. That’s because these secrets are helping them learn to read and write.

Called Secret Stories, the fun, interactive tool is used mostly in kindergarten and first grade classrooms in combination with the literacy model. 

"Secret Stories allows students to be exposed to phonics skills and rules at an early age through stories that provide logical explanations for letter sound behavior and the secret reasons why letters make the sounds that they do when they get together in words,” said Karen Bohannon, West Elementary literacy instructional coach. 

Michelle Giles, West kindergarten teacher, said Secret Stories helps her students make connections, which is always exciting as a teacher to see. 

They just have so much fun learning the stories and the different secrets.”
- Michelle Giles, kindergarten teacher

"I’ve seen so many benefits using Secret Stories,” she said. “I’ve noticed that higher readers are noticing sounds that we’ve never even introduced before. But also I’ve noticed that it helps the lower readers learn their letters and sounds. They just have so much fun learning the stories and the different secrets.”

Jennifer McCary, West kindergarten teacher, said it’s not only exciting to see student’s reading improve, but it’s fun watching their writing improve as well. 

"One of the things I love about Secret Stories is how it carries over into the student’s writing in kindergarten,” she said. “They are starting to transfer things.”

Bohannon said Secret Stories is a fun way through visual and auditory learning to cognitively engage students in phonics.

"We love to see how students are taking their Secret Stories and transferring their knowledge into reading and writing,” she said.