The booklet was about coal and coal miners, and 10-year-old Arturo Fuentes read it aloud almost flawlessly.

"Now close the book and tell me a little about what you read," said Nicolette Vander Velde, Arturo's fifth-grade teacher at East Elementary School in Littleton.

Arturo understood complex concepts, such as a "renewable resource," but he recalled elements of the text at random, rather than in a logical order.

"The only thing I want you to work on is to put these in sequential order," Vander Velde instructed him.

The strategy of zeroing in on specific, minute weaknesses of each student's learning is the reason East Elementary moved up from a rating of "average" last year to "high" this year on state school report cards issued Tuesday, said Principal Greg Sumlin.

The move up was significant for East, where 78 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch, the main measure of poverty.

Only three other schools serving that percentage or higher of underprivileged students were rated "high:" Sierra Grande Elementary in Costilla County, Carlile Elementary in Pueblo and Pike Elementary in Colorado Springs.

About half the East students come from homes in which English is not the main language.

In addition to individual one-on-one evaluations by teachers, East students are tested frequently, and the data are mined for evidence of where each student needs more work.

"We're understanding things more around being prescriptive for individual kids instead of saying, 'We're going to do this program, and it's going to benefit everbody,' " Sumlin said.

Schools statewide are increasingly moving to a similar strategy. Sumlin said he's not sure why East has been particularly successful.

"I mean, I come here every day, and I think we are as committed as everyone in this business at looking at ways to continually improve," he said.

Teachers at each grade level meet periodically to dissect the needs of each student. The students are then sorted into small groups that target their needs.

Some students get additional help from specialists, and about 25 students stay after school for one-hour tutoring sessions.

The result is a vastly different kind of school than fifth-grade teacher Vander Velde, 26, attended when she was growing up in Littleton.

"When I was in school, we didn't have small-group instruction," said Vander Velde, who attended Centennial Elementary School.

Vander Velde's mother, Diane Vander Velde, 47, recalls enormous classes when she attended Littleton Public Schools.

"I looked at my class picture. I think I had 32 kids in my first-grade class," said Diane Vander Velde.

Diane Vander Velde teaches first grade at East. Like her daughter, Diane Vander Velde attended Centennial.

"I remember the whole class stayed in the classroom the whole day and the teacher taught everything," Diane Vander Velde said.

Today, traditional "classroom teachers" make up less than half the staff at East.

Of 37 people with Colorado Education Department licenses, only 16 are classroom teachers, Sumlin said. The rest are specialists, including five language specialists.

The big 6

East Elementary School Principal Greg Sumlin outlined six key strategies the school uses to boost learning.

* Teachers focus on the needs of each child, instead of delivering lessons broadcast to the class in general.

* Teachers use test data to identify where students need individual help.

* The school doesn't wait for results of statewide achievement tests, which are released in August. Assessments are at frequent intervals - every six weeks. Tests can be on paper or occur in one-on-one sessions with a teacher to spot weaknesses.

* Teachers work with students in small groups - as few as four at a time - who have similar needs. Students with extreme problems get after-school tutoring.

* Classroom teachers and specialists, such as language specialists, at each grade level sift the data on students togther and brainstorm strategies.

* Reading is emphasized in subjects such as social studies and math. For example, students might have to read a paragraph to understand a math problem.

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