Page 8 | ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding
©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding | Page 9
Perception: It is mostly our poor and minority students who are
behind. We can’t really expect them to learn as fast as everyone
else, can we?
FACT:
The primary driver of low achievement is not parent wealth or skin color. It is
starting behind. Starting behind is caused by less time-on-task. Students who spend
little time on basic academic skills from birth to five typically start behind.
Once poor and low socioeconomic status (SES) students come to school, their rates of
learning are almost identical to other populations, just from lower starting points. What
you can accurately predict, is when students start one-to-three years behind in reading,
and they only make a year of reading growth each year, they are going to score behind in
reading, math, and science every time you test them during the next 12 years.
Perception: We have been at this for almost a decade and we still
can’t get students to standard. We don’t think it can be done.
FACT:
Many schools and districts with the same demographics are making these
gains. They are just doing different things in the highly leveraged areas of:
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Parent engagement in birth to five literacy,
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Grade level reading in grades kindergarten through third grade,
especially in kindergarten and by third grade, and
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Summer gain and loss.
Perception: Why bother with parents whose children aren’t even
in school yet?
FACT:
It is in the homes, not the schools, that the five-year literacy gap before
kindergarten is created. The easiest place to change a child’s academic trajectory is from
birth to age five. Forward looking districts create simple organizational structures to help
and inform parents of the lowest 40 percent of students to do what the parents of the
top 40 percent of students do – read 20 minutes every day to their children beginning at
birth, talking to them and spending another 5 to 10 minutes each day on age appropriate
literacy, math and social skills.
Preventing Reading, Math and Science Failure
Perception: We have an effective reading program. It just doesn’t
work all the time with all of our kids. What should we be doing
differently?
FACT:
Kindergarten through third grade is the second easiest place to change
students’ academic trajectory, and especially in kindergarten. Effective reading programs
start with generous allocations of instruction time: An initial hour of whole class
instruction. A second hour of differentiated instruction with students grouped by ability,
and part or all of a third hour for students who are two-to-three years behind (below the
30th percentile). The curriculum should explicitly teach phonics. The assessment should
measure growth, as well as achievement and be done in fall, winter and spring starting in
kindergarten. Teachers and principals should also be trained.
The testing technology, curriculum and use of time-practices have all been developed.
You may think you have a good reading program but it is only good if 90 percent of your
students read at or above grade level.
Perception: It’s over after third grade if students aren’t already
reading on grade level.
FACT:
No, it just harder. School is less fun, student self-image as non-readers
solidifies, and the instructional time issue becomes a mini-death spiral. Before third
grade students learn to read. After third grade they read to learn. Behind-in-reading
students now need much more time to master the same content as other students. But
at the same time, they may need to take up to two hours each day away from other
subjects to learn grade-level reading skills. By high school, you may barely be able to
keep many of these students in school, let alone in two hours of remedial reading.
Preventing...Continued