KYLE M. JOHNSON
STAFF WRITER

CSUSM President Karen Haynes recently announced that the Developing Reading Education with Arts Method (DREAM) program contributed towards improving elementary student test scores in reading by 87 points.

The program is a 4-year arts integration program with a nearly $1 million grant received from the United States Department of Education.

According to the DREAM website, “The goal of DREAM is to train third and fourth grade teachers to use visual arts and theatre activities in their classroom to improve students’ reading and writing skills.”

The program uses this training technique through week-long summer programs and classroom arts coaching with teachers.

“We’re not taking the emphasis off of reading and math by integrating the arts. We’re really supporting it,” Merryl Goldberg, Artistic Director of DREAM, said in a video on the program’s website.

The program is a collaboration of CSUSM, North County Professional Development Federation, San Diego Office of Education and ten North San Diego County school districts, specifically 141 teachers and 3,000 students.

“The arts, because it’s at the core of [DREAM], teach creative thinking, innovative thinking, teach critical thinking, teach how to think outside the box, how to problem solve, how to work well with others. These are skills that are just fundamental to what we need for the 21st century,” Goldberg said in the video.

For more information on the DREAM program, visit dream.sdcoe.net.