One Bronx school is celebrating a dramatic boost in reading test scores this past year.

Administrators at the Bronx Charter School for the Arts in Hunts Point say students at the school were testing quite low on state reading exams. They researched literacy education and decided to renovate the school's literacy program by purchasing a new curriculum, hiring literacy and reading coaches and adding after school classes for struggling students.

Teachers at the charter school were ecstatic with the changes and administrators say they worked at fitting the new program into the school budget. The result? Reading test scores improved more than 19 percent. The test scores are higher than the district average and equal to the New York City average.

Administrators say the students still fall below the citywide charter school average, but they are proud nonetheless.

"We have students who are homeless, who are in transitional housing, who live below the poverty line, but we have a set of core beliefs here and will teach despite these obstacles," Eve Colavito, an administrator, says.

Teachers say the new literacy program has also given the students confidence in the classroom.