Conference Urges Balanced Program for Young Readers

It was an impassioned call to arms: to have Los Angeles schoolchildren, many of whom are just learning English, “Reading by Nine.”

After all, educators and officials at a Saturday reading conference said, it is the very future of the city that is at stake in the campaign to implement an effective reading strategy for public school students in Los Angeles.

“This is life or death,” said Marian Joseph, a member of the State Board of Education. “If children are not reading fluently by the third grade, the chances of them having a productive life is in serious question.”

And throughout the day, Supt. Ruben Zacarias and other Los Angeles Unified School District administrators repeated some very clear marching orders: Instruction in English and in reading must proceed in tandem.

“Dr. Zacarias wanted to be perfectly clear that we teach all skills--listening, speaking, reading and writing--to English learners simultaneously, not delayed,” said Forrest Ross, director of the district’s Language Acquisition Branch.

Carmel Madady, assistant principal of Stanford Elementary School in South Gate, said those instructions helped clarify confusion at her school. As at other schools in the district, Stanford teachers were not giving formal reading lessons to students who speak little or no English. In the wake of the anti-bilingual initiative, they have been offering those students oral English language development instead this fall.

“There was a lot of confusion over this point,” said Madady, whose school has 1,450 students classified as limited English speakers out of a total enrollment of 1,791.

“The district’s policy wasn’t clear before, and it’s so new,” she said. “We’ll translate this to teachers.”

The reading conference, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, was the first step of a campaign to bring together state and city educators, city officials and corporate leaders to focus on the creation of a strong reading curriculum and to provide teachers and administrators with specific steps and a timetable for reaching each goal.

“I know each and every one of you have this passion, and on Monday, please begin transmitting it in our schools,” said Bob Collins, director of the district’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Branch. “It’s an issue of our children being at greater risk than ever before. You’re here today to be an advocate for what you heard.

“It’s kind of an exciting time,” he said.

It is also a tumultuous time, as Los Angeles schools struggle with the task of implementing the month-old English immersion program required by the passage in June of Proposition 227, which replaced California’s bilingual education program.

Of the more than 700,000 students in the Los Angeles district, as many as 300,000 are classified as limited English proficient, Collins said. And about 48,000 new English-limited students begin pre-kindergarten, kindergarten or first grade each year, Ross said.

For teachers in the trenches of the shift to English immersion, the conference provided an opportunity to air some needs of their own.

“We purchased Spanish-based texts at great cost, and now we’re stuck with a series of Spanish-based books which we’re discouraged from using,” said Michael Andrino, a teacher at Fullbright Elementary School in Canoga Park. “Some people had their head in the sand. The district just didn’t prepare for this.”

Schoolteacher Patricia Abarca said her school, Heliotrope in Maywood, will have to spend $400,000 to replace its Spanish-language materials.

“We don’t have the money, and we sure would appreciate increased funding,” Abarca said. “What we have is a drop in the bucket.”

Cathy Barkett of the state Department of Education reminded participants that $1 billion in educational funding will be disbursed statewide over the next four years.

The most immediate step outlined by conference leaders calls for each elementary school classroom to block out two hours a day for a districtwide structured reading program that is to begin Jan. 1, Collins said.

The reading program uses an approach that balances phonics with literature reading, listening and speaking, aligned to state standards, said one school administrator, Bonnie Rubio.

“This is a very clear message,” Collins said. “It is designed to have every teacher and principal on the same page when it comes to reading in Los Angeles. We want to be sure that state standards are understood by everyone.”

Other immediate steps outlined for the next 10 months include identifying children at risk and targeting schools to supply the resources and direction each needs.

Over the next two years, they will add additional teacher training and make sure each school has the same textbook, officials said.

“I think everyone just sort of woke up and said this is a huge problem,” said Janis Berk, director of the Los Angeles Times “Reading by Nine” program. “It’s an Olympian effort, and it’s going to require everyone working together to make it happen.”