HILL-Momenta Merger

During the 2021-22 school year, HILL for Literacy and Momenta, two literacy organizations with a long track record of providing support around evidence-based practices to schools and districts, combined their resources and expertise in a merger.

Both organizations started in the early 2000s with similar philosophies and approaches to helping schools improve their teaching of literacy. Recently, the HILL has evolved by systematizing processes, expanding outside Massachusetts, building a reputation and network within education thought leaders, and bringing more services online.

The Boards of the two organizations agreed that a merger, with the HILL as the sole surviving entity, was the best way to harness their strengths and address the challenges to attaining sustainability. The merger has had several advantages including increased effectiveness in improving literacy education for children through combining our staff and methodologies and a greater efficiency on the administrative side, which will lead to improved sustainability and an overall reduction in cost per student impacted.

Expanding Partnership with MA DESE

The HILL is proud to have partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on several exciting initiatives in school year 2021-22:

• GLEAM, Growing Literacy Equity Across Massachusetts. This project is intended to support implementation of deep and lasting improvements in programming across the Commonwealth through a multi-tiered system of support for ELA/literacy, as well as expanded access to high-quality preK. We’re working with 8 districts and have made great progress this year in conducting needs assessments and guiding the process of selecting high quality core programs.
• Mass Literacy Support Network. The HILL was selected to facilitate DESE’s virtual network of educators seeking to improve and expand their use of evidence-based early literacy practices and data-based decision making. We provided 5 trainings focused on maximizing data-meeting effectiveness to 90 educators from 51 districts across the state, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
• Mass Literacy: Open Access Professional Learning (OAPL). DESE is offering educators an approved selection of professional learning opportunities focused on early literacy. Qualified Massachusetts educators can enroll in these courses for free and receive a stipend upon completion. We’re thrilled to offer our Science of Reading Professional Learning Series as an OAPL course. Interest has been very high in this timely topic, and we look forward to continuing this partnership in the next school year as well!

Bridgeport-HILL For Literacy Partnership

During this past school year, HILL for Literacy worked closely with Bridgeport Public Schools in CT to implement our K-3 Literacy Model in their district and help close their achievement gap. The district includes 36 schools and serves nearly 20,000 students, 89.1% of whom are minorities, 50.8% are economically disadvantaged, and 14.1% are English language learners.

We provided training and support around leadership practices, multi-tiered instruction, professional development, and data meeting implementation. Thanks to the hard work, collaboration, and dedication of our joint team, Bridgeport teachers are already seeing improvements in their students’ literacy skills, and teachers and staff are eager to continue the forward momentum of our partnership. We’re very proud of the progress that’s been made, and we’re excited to continue the collaboration in the next school year.

Watch this brief video to hear what our partners in Bridgeport have to say!

Science of Reading Series Takes Off

In an effort to increase student proficiency in early reading, the HILL developed its proprietary training sequence to empower educators to understand and act upon scientific, evidence-based practices, materials, and assessments.

The Science of Reading: Professional Learning Series (SOR) arms educators with the foundational knowledge to teach reading to K-5 students through an asset-based approach and provides educators with strong base-knowledge to differentiate instruction amongst students. These modules can be translated across any reading program or instructional pathway. The original series is 10 modules for grades K-2 or 3-5 with an additional 7 modules called Digging Deeper into the Science of Reading launching in Summer 2022. We’re also developing an adolescent literacy track, an administration track, and a cultural responsiveness sequence. In the past year, demand for this course has skyrocketed! Between our in-district and open enrollment trainings we’ve held 481 training sessions attended by approximately 1,500 teachers, reaching 92 districts.