Reading Changes in the District
by Tom Mulligan
October 12, 2009
What’s new in Riverton CUSD #14? The Riverton School District is implementing a new, scientifically based approach to teaching reading comprehension. This approach to reading instruction is occurring across the district in grades K-12. It is also an approach that is supported in other content areas as well (such as science, social studies, etc.). Reading is the foundation for all learning, not only in school but also for life-long learning. The district’s expectation is that we prepare all students with the skills necessary to read fluently and comprehend what they read, whether they are reading a novel, a newspaper, a medical journal, a poem, a legal brief or even an article in Sports Illustrated. Adults read different types of print at both their work and for pleasure. The focus of reading instruction must be to provide every student with the skills necessary to read and comprehend, while providing them with the opportunity to read a variety of materials (poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc.).
What does quality reading instruction look like? There are several aspects to quality reading instruction. There is phonics/phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and to understand that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of sounds), decoding (ability to generate sounds from letters and blend sounds into words), fluency (ability to read words with no noticeable cognitive effort), and vocabulary (ability to associate a specific meaning to words – receptive vocabulary and to speak words for a particular meaning – expressive vocabulary). These four areas of reading instruction provide a foundation for students to be able to perform the ultimate reading skill of reading comprehension. Phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency should be taught and mastered at the elementary school levels. Of course, some students will need additional support in these areas as they go beyond elementary school. Vocabulary instruction is taught all the way through the grade levels at various levels of difficulty to allow students to read more and more complex text (https://dibels.uoregon.edu/, 2009).
Reading comprehension is the essence of reading. It is the process of interaction between the reader and text to extract meaning. It is a process that must be taught from the time students begin to interact with books (even before they can read the words). It is also a process that must be taught and practiced all the way through high school. Although the district is working to improve the areas of phonemic awareness, fluency, decoding and vocabulary, the main focus for change is in how the district is teaching reading comprehension.
Why change from the old approach? The decision to implement a better approach to reading comprehension was not made on a whim. The district staff has been analyzing student assessment scores for the past several years. In that time, the district has seen incremental growth each year in the number of students meeting standards on state assessments. Even though that that was the case, we were not seeing the amount of improvement we expected in certain areas. In addition to the assessment data (both on state and other local assessments), the district hired a Literacy Engineering Firm in the 2008/2009 school year to conduct a literacy audit across the district to determine aspects of the district’s reading program that could be improved. The audit addressed five areas: Reading Instructional Delivery, Reading Materials, Struggling Reader Support, Reading Assessments and Administrative Support. The audit revealed that even though the district was teaching reading comprehension, we were not teaching reading comprehension in a manner that is most in line with current research on how students learn to read and comprehend.
What research is there that supports the change? Almost all current research on how to teach reading supports the changes that we are making with reading comprehension instruction. The foundation of all the research is the scientifically proven research on brain learning. The last fifteen years has seen very dramatic and exciting scientifically proven research on how the human brain learns. This research will truly put a stop to the shift in trends for reading instruction. It is just not plausible to argue with scientific information that clearly proves how students’ best learn. The challenge is to redesign instruction to maximize learning based on the way the brain works.
What has changed? It is important to note that the district has always taught reading comprehension. With that said, there are some important new and exciting changes that are outlined in this section.
Scope and Sequence: The first change deals both with what students are taught and for the length of time they are taught reading comprehension concepts. There are six main reading comprehension strategies: Predicting, Summarizing, Connecting, Questioning, Inferring and Imaging. We have always taught these skills in grades K-6 but teachers were given a lot of latitude on what order to teach these skills and for what length of time to teach these skills. Because of brain research, we now know that in order to maximize how students learn, there is a specific sequence of skills that must be taught for specific lengths of time. These two concepts have caused Grades K-6 teachers to be consistent with the amount of time they spend teaching and practicing comprehension skills and also to be consistent with the length of time they spend mastering these skills. The change in Grades 7-12 is even more drastic. We really did not specifically teach reading comprehension in those grade levels. The focus of instruction was more on practicing reading comprehension through the teaching of literature and novels (fiction) based instruction. Those grade levels are now specifically teaching reading comprehension skills (those discussed earlier) but obviously with higher levels and different types of text than at the earlier grades.
Gradual Release of Responsibility: One of the main concepts in this research-based approach to reading comprehension instruction is the “Gradual Release of Responsibility.” This process is a focused effort on making sure learning goes from the teacher providing high quality to instruction to each student mastering the comprehension skill. It includes four major steps. The first is that the teachers experience and understand the comprehension strategy through training; the second includes modeling and step-by-step instruction by the teacher; the third includes small group facilitation where the teacher provides direct instruction for students based on their individual needs; and the fourth is where each student practices, applies and uses the strategies (Gretchen Courtney, 2007).
Focusing on Individual Needs: Daily reading instruction includes three main teaching strategies in every classroom: shared reading, guided reading and independent practice. Shared reading is where teachers provide whole-class instruction on a comprehension strategy. It is important to note that when doing whole class instruction, teachers use reading materials that are at grade level. In other words, if they are teaching 5th grade, they use reading materials that a fifth grader should be able to read. Guided reading is where teachers work with small groups of students to provide them with instruction based on their individual needs. While the teacher is working with small groups of students in guided reading, the other students are working on independent practice. This is where individual students work on a variety of activities designed to practice the reading comprehension strategy that is being focused on at the time. It is also a time where each student works at their individual reading levels thereby allowing each student to improve at their own pace. Guided reading and independent practice allows teachers to instruct and meet the needs of each student, whether that student is an at-risk student or a gifted student.
Variety of Reading Materials: The final major change is a district-wide effort at providing students with an opportunity to read different types of reading materials. Our reading program in the past had too much emphasis on narrative, fiction text. This means that our students were reading too many novels and materials that told a story (had a beginning, middle and end). Most information that is encountered after the age of 12 is nonfiction and much of it is non-narrative (meaning it does not read like a story). Non-narrative, non-fiction reading materials generally include any informational texts such as textbooks, articles from magazines, work related materials like manuals, etc. As a result, the district is now requiring students to read much more non-narrative, non-fiction text at all grade levels.
