Welcome....

What follows here is an account of what I am reading, which books I love, some information on reading, etc. I hope you will feel free to comment back on things I've written about--for this is a sharing experience!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The 90% Reading Goal

Thank you, Judy McPherson, for lending me this book.  Although it took me a little while to find time to read it, it was worth it! 

Even before NCLB, this district in Washington decided to set a goal that 90% of their 3rd graders would read on grade level.  As anyone in elementary knows, this means a total commitment of K-3 teachers!  Research shows that prevention/intervention in the early grades is key to a student's future success.  Waiting after the age of nine means that over 75% of those who struggle will never become strong readers.  So how did they do it? (And they admitted that not all their third graders read on grade level but most of the elementary schools have achieved that goal--as of the writing of the book, the district was up to 71%)

Probably the top reason for "success" was total commitment from the board and the staff of the thirteen elementary schools in the district.  They decided that achieving grade level reading in K-3 was more important than the agenda of social, athletic, and employee.  They did not prescribe HOW teachers were to make the 90% goal, they were just told to do it--everything was based on results.  they contracted with NWEA test banks to have a solid evaluation system.  And, although it must have been frightening to the K-3 teachers, the board took responsibility also by saying that anyone (board to principal) who would not work to create teams to accomplish the goal should step aside and allow someone else to take their place.  Schools were given the freedom to cut other curriculum, make changes in staff, and to bring in various approaches to teaching reading in the classroom.  Two programs were adopted; each school chose the one they wanted.  CORE (Consortium on Reading Excellence) offers a program that offered results:  85%-90% of most children can read at or above grade level by the end of third grade using their process.

I also liked what the book said about the "other" cores--math, science, social studies.  All of these need solid reading to excel, so why shouldn't we give them this skill before setting them loose on the content areas?  They did some other cool things such as getting parents and community involved.  And the Reading Foundation was created.  Businesses were encouraged to help support the program.  Advice is given to college programs.  "How you can do this in your school district" was also addressed.....

BUT...

Of course I have a "but."  I would have liked it better if the report was from classroom teachers rather than from board members.  Sure, teachers got to choose measurements and methods, but whose rear ends were really on the line?  I didn't see what happened to the teachers whose students did not meet the goal....did I miss that? 

Finally, according to the book, it isn't the socioeconomics that is the key--it is the amount and quality of literacy that a student experiences BEFORE entering kindergarten.  My personal favorite part is in Appendix F:  Decoding Language: Whole Language for Meaning, Phonetics, and Phonological Awareness.

Note:

From page 117:
"A criterion-referenced test is designed to test student progress toward understanding and applying specifically taught concepts.  The reporting format uses the level of learned information or skill as the primary comparative basis.

"A norm-referenced test is designed to measure differences among individuals composing the group.  Those reports use other student scores as the primary basis of comparison.  An important design criteria is the selection of questions which highlight differences among students.  Because fixed external standards are inherently inconsistent with norm-reference methodology, statistical reports mask whether a third-grader's reading level is so low that it will interfere with the learning of academic content."

They prefer the criterion-referenced test.

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