Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report - S6

S6 |
EDUCATION WEEK MAY 13, 2015
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Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
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On the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
or NAEP, Alabama's 4th grade students' reading
performance rose from well below average to statistically
indistinguishable from the national average by 2011 and
it has stayed there since. That means its students have
outperformed those in other states with similarly high rates of
child poverty, including California, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and New Mexico.
Alabama's
Reading
Gains
Alabama's black and Hispanic 4th graders have caught up with their
national counterparts as well.
State test-score data from Dallas County, where Southside Primary School
is located, showed strong gains as well, particularly among black students.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE S4
Alabama is a football state," said
Ms. Mitchell, now retired, from her
Atlanta home. "I think it is the key.
These teachers have got an advocate
for them in the building."
Lawmakers from both political
ALABAMA GRADE 4
NAEP READING SCORES
230
220
210
200
190
0
230
227
220
218
217
219
216
207 207
217
208
201
197
188
188
188
2002 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013
Black students
Hispanic students
All U.S. students
White students
All Alabama students
201
200
220
216
225
220
216
205
204
206
202
227
220
220
221
219
parties threw their support behind
the program, and for the 1999-2000
school year, the legislature set aside
funds to begin expanding it statewide.
The ari predates the influential
2000 National Reading Panel report,
but its foundational elements
are similar. They include systematic
and explicit instruction in phonics
and phonemic awareness, alongside
vocabulary and comprehension.
The early days of the ari were
PERCENT OF DALLAS COUNTY GRADE 4 STUDENTS
'EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS' ON THE ALABAMA READING TEST
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
62
48
29
19
11
2004
2005
2006
Dallas black
students
2007
2008
State black
students
2009
2010
Dallas white
students
2011
2012
State white
students
SOURCES: NAEP; Alabama Department of Education
2013
34
32
23
64
49
34
23
64
48
35
25
64
44
35
18
36
35
26
65
66
44
39
24
65
46
36
21
48
39
67
55
70
49
42
42
rocky, Ms. Mitchell acknowledged.
With schools still reeling from the
"reading wars" over the appropriate
balance of instruction in word-level
alphabetics with less systematic, socalled
whole-language approaches,
she found just one professor among
the state's teacher colleges who had a
background in phonics. And because
of variations in curricular quality-
Alabama permits districts to choose
their textbooks-reading coaches
dragged suitcases of their own materials
to their schools.
Teachers were initially resistant,
demanding to know why they were
being observed. "I can't tell you how
many days I came home crying,"
said Ms. Kelley, the Dallas County
regional coach.
Today, coaching still isn't uniformly
embraced, but it has gained
currency with the state's teaching
force , partly because all the building
coaches have teaching experience,
usually many years of it.
Southside's Ms. Daniel said the
program has been invaluable to her.
When she entered teaching, kindergarten
literacy rarely went further
than ensuring pupils could recognize
all 26 letters of the alphabet by
the end of the year.
Nearly every technique she uses
now to teach more advanced reading
and writing skills was honed
Kindergartners Jaylen
Rivers, Jalisha Lee,
and KenmaJ Shell, left
to right, practice
literacy skills with
their teacher, Diane
Daniel, at Southside
Primary School in
Selma, Ala. Educators
credit teacher
professional
development for the
state's reading gains.
through the ari's coaching system.
"I get to look at the children's
strengths and weaknesses, and I'm
driven by that," Ms. Daniel said.
If the ari remains obscure outside
the state, that may be partly because
its features have been extensively
copied elsewhere.
After Alabama began using reading
coaches, many other states followed
suit, with varying degrees of
success, under the $1 billion-a-year
federal Reading First program. Alabama
was also among the first states
to use a 90-minute reading block in
K-3 schools and to require use of a
tool to gauge growth in students' decoding
skills and oral fluency.
Evolving Focus
Even today, the program's structure
remains influential. An early
evaluator of the ari for the state
education department, Ed Moscovitch,
now runs the Bay State Reading
Institute, a nonprofit that uses
a similar teacher-coaching model
to improve reading in 44 schools in
Massachusetts. When holding meetings
to discuss student data, for instance,
principals and coaches both
celebrate the gains of students who
have improved and strategize to
help those who are still struggling.
"The approach we take to the meetings
comes right out of their script,"
Mr. Moscovitch said of the ari. "You
can't be successful changing adult
behavior if you're looking down on
teachers. You have to get them to
trust you, to like you, and to have
confidence in you."
Alabama's consistency of approach
seems to be one factor in
the ari's success, even as attention
to reading in other states has
varied or waned. The ari's staff
has maintained the program's core
features, while working to keep its
curriculum current and responsive
to lessons learned.
There's a general consensus, for
example, that external pressure initially
caused some schools to focus
too heavily on discrete skills such as
Julie Bennett for Education Week
//
http://www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report

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