Allison Barnhart, a reading interventionist and teacher at Wright City Middle School was named as the Wright City R-II School District’s Teacher of the Year. 

Barnhart has taught for 17 years, all in the R-II district, including 15 years at Wright City West Elementary before she moved to the middle school two years ago. 

She is a reading interventionist and specializes in teaching small classes of students who are behind on reading to bring them up to their grade level before they leave middle school. 

She was surprised and honored when Dr. Superintendent Amy Salvo visited her classroom to deliver the news, but said her students’ success was far more important. 

“What I do, I do every day for the kids, and it’s not really about me and my recognition,” said Barnhart. “I just want to make sure they’re getting the best education and what they need to be successful.”

Wright City Middle School Principal Taylor Backues was proud of Barnhart for her efforts and congratulated her on the award. 

"Mrs. Barnhart teaches and leads straight from her heart. Her genuine care for students and unwavering commitment to their growth go far beyond expectations. We are incredibly fortunate to have her as part of the Wright City Middle School family," said Backues. 

Barnhart sees up to 60 students a day who are on “reading success plans,” to bring their skills up to the grade level and she oversees the larger reading intervention program at the middle school including roughly 120 students. 

Her intervention lessons, taught in small groups of less than 10 students, focus first on phonics before applying those skills by reading. 

Some of her lessons turn the focus on reading into a game for students where they have to identify the correct pronunciation of words and letters in certain words. The friendly competition is inspired by Barnhart’s enthusiasm for her students’ learning and at her direction, they sound out words and practice the reading skills necessary to be successful in their other classes as well. 

“If they’re spending so much time sounding words out, they’re not comprehending anything that they read. So we’re kind of helping to build that fluency so they can comprehend and get the material they’re getting in their classroom,” said Barnhart. 

She started her career as a traditional teacher, but when she attended school for her masters’ degree, she saw reading as an area of growing need in her district, and in schools statewide. 

Barnhart said issues with reading scores started to appear around the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to stagnate nationwide. She began learning more about how the brain learns to read and what techniques could be used to more effectively build those skills. 

“The science of reading, and the research that’s behind it, like how the brain learns that, it’s really just fascinating to me, and we made a lot of changes over at West (elementary) in how we taught reading, … and it was a great opportunity for me. I love being able to spread what I know,” said Barnhart. 

She always knew she wanted to teach, and when she was younger she used to take extra worksheets from the classroom so she could pretend to teach at home on the weekends. 

Barnhart also credited her passion to a relationship with a science teacher when she was in middle school, Mr. McColgan. 

“Everything was fun and exciting and engaging, and he did a really good job building relationships with us, and he had such an impact on me that I wanted to do the same for other kids,” said Barnhart. 

That encouragement and engagement that Mr. McColgan brought to her for so many years is palpable in her classroom, as is her passion for her students’ success. She tracks the progress of all the students in her program testing them on their reading ability and comprehension regularly. 

She was proud that many of her students are seeing significant improvement, and many of them will be finishing her program this spring and moving on to the next level. 

“We’re seeing some kids make some huge gains. We’re gonna see some kids graduate out of here in a few weeks and so that’s really exciting to see,” said Barnhart. “How some of my (biggest) strugglers are at a point that they’re ready to exit.”

She cited Mr. McColgan’s passion and excitement as something she tried to draw on in her teaching, and hoped that one day she could play the same role for one of her students. 

“My ultimate goal is to be someone else’s Mr. McColgan, for them to look back and be like, ‘oh Mrs. Barnhart was one of my most impactful teachers because she took the time to get to know me and spread kindness and now I want to do that in my own life,’” said Barnhart.