HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Florida — A first of its kind program in Hillsborough County is helping students improve their reading while also training teachers.

The program is known as "Reading Recovery" and Mary Vreeman is the first teacher in the district to use it. She is an educator at Dr. Carter G. Woodson PreK-8 Leadership Academy.

Reading Recovery is an accelerated program that gives extra attention to first-grade students in need.

"The danger in not getting that one-on-one attention is they would continue to fall behind in their class, and by third grade we'd see that mandatory retention happen," Vreeman said.

Vreeman starts the students reading books they already know to help build their confidence and then gradually introduces new material.

"Then we might come to the white board and work with some letters or sounds, or we might work in sound boxes where we're breaking the letters and words down and we're building them back up," Vreeman said.

While the lessons are one-on-one, an audience may be watching. Part of the program allows other teachers to observe through a one-way mirror. Eventually, Vreeman will train those teachers to join the program.

School leaders said they're overjoyed with the impact.

"It builds confidence. When we are readers, we are leaders," Principal Ovett Wilson said.

"I can't think of any other word than payoff because when you go into teaching, it's because you want to help children be any more than they are right now," Vreeman said.

The program started four years ago in Sarasota. Vreeman is getting intensive training through a scholarship.

Next year, she will be able to train more teachers to create more reading recovery programs across the district. They'll target specific high-needs schools.