Since joining the Coalition of Essential Schools in February 1999, the South Lawrence East Elementary School has used the CES Common Principles as the foundation for enhancing its culture and ensuring student success. To help the teachers meet their literacy goals, the school began a partnership in the spring of 2000 with the Eliot-Pearson Center for Applied Child Development (CACD) at Tufts University. CACD provides customized support to schools that seek to improve literacy teaching and learning, and its child development and literacy specialists have developed the "Learn to Read by Reading" (LRR) model. The LRR model depends on a skillful and committed approach. Teachers must understand the strategies used by proficient readers and writers, use assessment to identify their students' learning needs, and plan instruction that meets these needs. The model requires a high degree of personalized teaching, collaboration with colleagues, and ongoing reflection. In the school's classrooms, teachers have a daily two to two and a half hour literacy period with the following elements: (1) Readers' Workshop--approximately one hour; (2) Writers' Workshop--approximately 45 minutes; (3) Phonics/Word Study--approximately 15 minutes; and (4) Interactive Read Aloud--approximately 15 minutes. The school's efforts to implement a balanced literacy model have helped it to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress in English Language Arts for several cycles. Although state and federal mandates are making such goals more and more difficult to reach, teachers are confident that their commitment to continued professional learning and growth, along with their Common Principle guideposts, will help them ensure the success of each and every one of their students.