Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report - S7

EDUCATION WEEK
EDUCATION WEEK MAY 13, 2015
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MAY 13, 2015
Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
Building Literacy Skills > www.edweek.org/go/buildingliteracy
| S7
oral fluency. Local newspapers had
a habit of printing schools' performance
on the Dynamic Indicators
of Basic Early Literacy Skills, or dibels,
the progress-monitoring tool
that until recently all schools in the
state were required to use.
"We focused a lot on the system
of print," said Timothy Cobb, a regional
coach in Tallapoosa County.
"But we didn't spend as much time
on the system of language and the
system of meaning."
Nowadays, dibels-which had
come under criticism for its focus
on such skills as nonsense-word fluency-is
no longer mandated, and
some schools have adopted monitoring
tools with more-sophisticated
comprehension measures. Program
materials are incorporating insights
from literacy scholars like E.D.
Hirsch that emphasize the importance
of content-rich reading materials
to build students' background
knowledge and comprehension.
Take vocabulary instruction,
which at one point was taught
largely in isolation.
"We used to throw words on the
board, and kids would study them,"
said Daphne McClendon, a coach in
the 11,000-student Elmore district.
"But the vocabulary needs to be relevant
to what they're talking about,
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so it's not a random list of words
they need to know for a test."
The ari has also become the
state's front-line approach to providing
professional development
on the Alabama College & CareerReady
Standards for English/
language arts, its version of the
Common Core State Standards.
In recent months, the ari coaches
have worked with teachers on key
elements of the standards, including
text complexity, evidence-based
writing, and focusing on greater
content rigor.
Meeting New Standards
"Teachers in the lower grades tend
to simplify, so that students can understand
the concept," said Ms. Stone
of the state education department,
"but that doesn't pay off for us if they
don't acquire the language to talk
about those concepts."
As the ari begins to approach its
20th year, its supporters are doing
some soul-searching about where
the initiative needs to go next.
Partially in response to the demand
of the new academic standards,
the state education department,
in 2012-13, expanded the
reading coaches' work to include
secondary grades as well.
There are some benefits to the
new arrangement, Alabama officials
say. Since the coaches are working
across subject areas in secondary
schools, it gives currency to the
idea enshrined in the new academic
standards that literacy development
at the secondary level is the responsibility
of all teachers, not just those
teaching English/language arts.
But there are legitimate worries,
too, about whether expanding the
initiative's scope risks overtaxing
the instructional coaches.
"I'll be honest with you: It can be
overwhelming. When I was in K-3,
I could get in there, and I knew my
babies," said Ms. Porter, the building
coach at Reeltown. Coaching secondary-level
teachers requires a different
approach, she said: "I don't go in
and pretend in any way to be an expert
in their content, but I do work
on how to incorporate small groups
and boost student engagement."
The demand on the coaches is increasing
even as resources are scarcer.
Funded at a height of $64 million in
fiscal 2008, the program was scaled
back after the state was badly hit in
the Great Recession. Each building
once had its own reading coach; most
now are split among schools.
State officials underscore that they
are grateful to the state legislature
for a continued appropriation for the
ari, but acknowledge that a fresh infusion
could help balance the weight
of all the new responsibilities. And
they're on tenterhooks waiting for the
results of the most recent administration
of the reading naep to appear
this fall. In the 2013 administration,
Alabama's 4th grade scores dropped
slightly-not enough to be statistically
significant, but enough to be
concerning. This fall's results will be
closely watched.
As Ms. Mitchell notes, literacy is a
moving target: There will always be
next year's entering class, many of
whom will need sustained support.
"We are not at the national average
with wealth in our state, or
with students' experiences, or with
exposure to language," Ms. Mitchell
noted. "It is very hard work." ■
Holly Yettick and Sterling Lloyd of
the Education Week Research Center
contributed to this article.
Coverage of "deeper learning" that will
prepare students with the skills and
knowledge needed to succeed in a rapidly
changing world is supported in part
by a grant from the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, at www.hewlett.org.
Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.
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Education Week - May 13, 2015 - Special Report

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