Saturday, April 29, 2000
District raises reading scores with inclusive approach
By Andrea Tortora
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Nearly half of the third-graders at First District Elementary could barely read when school started last fall.
Seven months later, when they were tested in March, all 60 of the third-graders were reading at the second-grade level or higher. One tested at the seventh-grade level.
First- and second-graders showed similar reading improvements.
In fact, all of the school's 347 first- through sixth-graders have advanced in reading levels since school started. The successful trend is important for First Dis trict, which had rated the worst in the state on the 1999 basic skills test.
The key factor is reading, teachers and administrators said Friday.
First District is the first Northern Kentucky school to use Success For All, a federally funded teaching model that emphasizes daily reading in school and at home, with a good measure of behavior modification and cooperative learning lessons thrown in.
The school started using the program in September to reverse its trend of continued poor academic performance among a student body struggling to overcome poverty, unstable home life, even transience.
First District received a $53,000 federal grant to start the program, which costs about $75,000 in total its first year.
“Our focus on reading and cooperative learning has really helped,” said Cindy Bunch, a fifth-grade teacher. “The students are doing better in all subjects because now we can read social stud ies, do the research for science and focus on math.”
The good news doesn't end there. Statistics for the 1998-99 school year and the 1999-2000 school year, mea sured from September through March, show that:
• Attendance rates increased from 92.3 percent in
1998-99 to 93.3 percent for the same time this school year.
• Discipline referrals to the school office dropped 37 percent, from 3,257 in the 1998-1999 period to 2,068 this school year.
Success for All makes all 28 educators at First District — including the gym instructor and the music teacher — a reading teacher for the first 90 minutes of every school day.
Students are placed in reading groups based on their ability, not their grade. Student-teacher ratios in the groups are 10 to 15 students for each teacher. Several rooms have two teachers.
“We have reading going on in every nook and cranny of this building, from the computer labs to the teachers' lounge,” said Diane Hatfield, a reading facilitator.
More than 50 students receive daily, 20-minute tutoring sessions to reinforce their reading lessons. Every eight weeks the students are tested. If they show improvement, they are placed in more advanced reading groups.
Walk past any of the school's classrooms between 8:30 and 10 a.m. and you'll see it happening.
Crowded at their teacher's feet, students listen to a story. In pairs and teams, students confer on the meaning of a passage. Books open before them, students read aloud in a group with their teacher.
Most students read at home at least 20 minutes each night, too. They turn in orange “read and respond” forms signed by a parent. On Friday, 293 forms were turned in.
Reading at First District is also interactive.
In Sandy Schnatz's reading group of first- and second-graders, pairs of students “think, pair, share” before they answer a question about the story, “More Than Anything Else” by Marie Bradley.
Ms. Schnatz asks if students know what the author meant when she wrote that the main character wants to learn to read so badly he has a “hunger in his head.”
Jonathan Binder says, “Oh, oh.”
Cory Myerhoff, Jonathan's partner, grabs his hand and said, “Tell me.”
The two boys whisper. They raised the hands they are still holding. Ms. Schnatz asks Cory to tell her what his partner said — the reading lessons also force students to focus on listening. Cory replies: “He's thinking about food in his head because he has hunger in his stomach.”
It is a tough concept to grasp, Ms. Schnatz says, and she explains the use of metaphors.
Her students aren't deterred. They want to learn more and urge Ms. Schnatz to keep reading.
Inside Teri Schout's classroom, first- and second-graders practiced the sounds for the letter “P.”
Pa pa pig. Pa pa Pit Pat.
Ms. Schout explains how the sound bounces.
She tells Pedro Mercer and Austin Hammons to put their hands before their mouths when they say the sound.
“Feel the air. The air comes out when you say it,” she said.
“I really always felt icky about reading,” Ms. Bunch said. “How do you teach all of these kids to read? But I really like this program because it carries over into everything else.”
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