State Taking a Lesson From School’s Success Story

All second-grader Tyrend Goins did was read enthusiastically from a story about a group of kids flying through space on a bus. But his teachers couldn’t have been more astonished if the boy sitting cross-legged on the floor had himself begun to fly.

“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Myron Jantzen, who was Tyrend’s first-grade teacher. “Is this the same kid who wasn’t reading last year?”

Such outpourings--a combination of surprise, relief, pride and joy--are becoming common at James A. McKee Elementary School south of Sacramento.

Three years ago the school ranked as one of the lowest performing in the Elk Grove Unified School District. Today, 85% of first-graders are reading above grade level, well above the district average.

Numbers like that have made the school a welcome bright spot in the generally gloomy picture of reading achievement in California.

Improvement also has turned McKee into a mecca for the state’s teachers. Already, more than 1,200 teachers are using the “Reading Results” methods pioneered here. This summer, 6,000 teachers and principals from 600 schools will attend reading institutes modeled on McKee’s program, part of the education reform package Gov. Gray Davis pushed through the Legislature in April.

What sets McKee apart are frequent tests that make it possible to track every student’s progress. Instead of relying on a general sense of how well children are reading, which they often are able to fake, teachers know in fine detail what the children know and don’t.

Tests given three times each year, in the fall, February and May, tell teachers which students know the sound of “ai” or “ck.” They know who can sail through frequently used but phonetically difficult words such as “said” or “the.” They know precisely how fast each child reads and how well they understand what they read.

At McKee, that data drives classroom lessons and study groups. Students who score in the bottom quarter are assigned to groups of five or six and meet four times a week for after-school help tailored to their needs.

It was those sessions, Jantzen said, that made the difference for Tyrend. And it is that focus on quantifying each child’s skills and judging school performance according to those results that has often been lacking in education, experts say.

“Schools have an almost cultural and ingrained aversion to reckoning with, much less living by, results,” writes Mike Schmoker, a Colorado educational consultant.

Public Demands Forcing Change

Education reforms, Schmoker said, often are judged by how many teachers are trained or how many meetings are held rather than how much students have learned. That stems from a belief, deeply held by many educators, that education itself is immeasurable.

These days, though, the public is demanding better results, which is forcing a gradual shift in teaching theory and practice to emphasize the educational bottom line. The reading institutes, which will be called “Focusing on Results,” reflect the trend.

As the buzz over “Results” spreads, however, naysayers are popping up. Critics complain that the tests measure artificial skills--such as blending the sounds of a string of letters--rather than how well children read. And some reading experts object to the program’s use of books written to help beginners practice letter sounds. They say the books are written in a stilted, unnatural “man can fan” fashion that confuses children.

In addition, some reading experts say the project does not give teachers enough guidance in how to address their students’ problems. “There’s no uniform approach to answer the question of what do I do next when I find that they perform this way or that way,” said Alice Furry, who manages the state’s reading initiative resource center.

Even the backers of “Focusing on Results” recognize that it cannot transform reading instruction in California on its own.

One in four California children face the additional hurdle of learning to read in a language they don’t speak at home. Most textbooks now in use are geared to the whole-language approach and don’t lend themselves to the emphasis on the basics. A teacher shortage means that many instructors are new and ill-prepared, and “Focusing on Results” relies on skillful teaching.

But the program has strong backing in the Davis administration. “If we can really get 6,000 teachers and a few hundred schools that are really going to be changed as a result of this, I think this is a very worthwhile investment,” said state Secretary of Education Gary K. Hart.

Each reading institute will meet for five days in the summer and five days during the school year. Each participating school will send a team of 10 that includes new and experienced teachers, as well as an administrator and a reading specialist.

One of the four components of the training will deal with the science of reading: how the brain extracts meaning from words while rapidly processing the sounds made by letters. Another element will be tips on how to teach important skills, such as spelling.

Participants also will be introduced to the battery of tests and quizzes that can be given to measure students’ progress. Teachers acknowledge that the testing takes time away from instruction.

But Lynda Peddy, the McKee reading specialist who was inspired by Schmoker to help create “Reading Results,” said the tests enable teachers to use the remaining time more efficiently.

“You’re not doing spray-and-pray teaching,” Peddy said, referring to the derisive label for teaching without checking to see if individual students are getting it.

Teamwork Is Final Element of Project

Participants in the reading institutes will learn how to sort through the test data using readily available computer spreadsheet programs. This might show, for example, that the first-graders in one classroom are weak in spelling words that end with “ing.”

The final element is teamwork. Teachers meet regularly to analyze the data, set goals, identify kids who need extra help and devise new lessons.

“It’s not whining about what kids don’t know, it’s what do they know, what do they need to know and what are we going to do next,” said Jerry Treadway, a professor at San Diego State University.

Treadway is associate executive director of the statewide Reading and Literature Project, which will convene the governor’s reading institutes in partnership with the University of California, California State University and several private colleges.

The Reading and Literature Project, like McKee, has transformed itself in the past three years. Until 1996, it was called the Literature Project, and it paid little attention to beginning readers. It also was credited with helping to spread the whole-language philosophy across California.

Rather than teaching the sounds of letters directly, that approach emphasizes repeatedly exposing children to stories. Phonics skills, so the thinking goes, can be introduced as the need for them arises.

The state chose to take that route at the end of the 1980s. Four years ago, however, state officials were shocked by national test scores that found that 60% of California’s fourth-graders were poor readers. The embarrassing showing triggered an ongoing legislative response that has emphasized phonics and practice.

Peddy was convinced the state’s shift to explicit phonics lessons was wrong. In an effort to prove her point, she worked with reading experts in the summer of 1996 to develop the tests that now form the backbone of “Focusing on Results.” But the findings surprised her, and changed her mind about how to teach phonics.

During the first year, about 25 like-minded teachers scattered across the state, including four at McKee, gave the tests. Peddy recalls that the teachers were confident their students would do well. But they didn’t. They were particularly weak in their knowledge of letter sounds.

“It was awful, awful,” she said. “We were very surprised, very surprised, because we had been teaching phonics. But . . . we just hadn’t been teaching phonics in a focused, systematic, explicit way.”

The year before McKee began experimenting with “Focusing on Results,” the median score of the school’s first-graders on a comprehension test was at the 38th percentile (out of a possible 100). That means that half the students scored above that point and half below. Two years later the median had risen 33 points, to the 71st percentile.

The gains have opened the eyes of educators around the state. All of the students at Cypress Elementary School in Redding are considered poor under federal guidelines. But at the end of the school’s first year using the “Results,” program, 90% of second-graders were reading above grade level.

Principal William Parr said the showing was the school’s best ever. “I’ve been in education since 1965 and this is the best, most comprehensive plan for helping teachers assess and teach reading that I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Teachers and principals say the detailed data generated by the testing has transformed conferences with parents.

Peggy Shelly’s daughter Kaitlyne is a first-grader in Jantzen’s class at McKee. Earlier this month, when Jantzen sat down with her to discuss Kaitlyne’s progress, he spread out a sheaf of papers that showed her performance in October and then in February. Her spelling, recognition of common words, mastery of phonics and reading speed were all up and nearing or exceeding the goal for June. “It kind of blew me away,” Shelly said.

Parents Enlisted in Instructional Effort

Nine elementary schools in the North Hollywood area began using the “Results” approach this year. Teachers saw in the tests and goals a way to engage parents. Now, 900 parents are drilling--and testing--their children on lists of words known to trip up beginners.

Janet Kiddoo, a teacher who is helping the North Hollywood schools, said the transition to the “Results” approach is challenging. “It’s hard work because they’re learning how to do assessments . . . they have to learn to manage classroom time to do the assessment and they’re learning to analyze the results,” she said.

Jantzen is convinced that Tyrend Goins would have been an educational casualty only a few years ago. He would probably have been in a class of 32 children instead of 20. He would not have gotten after-school help from a teacher four days a week. And, Jantzen said, the school “wouldn’t have had nearly the effective teaching going on.”

A year ago, Jantzen said, Tyrend could barely read. In January, Tyrend was reading above grade level and devouring books.

Asked to explain the difference a year makes, Tyrend attributed it to his teachers. “They taught me how to read,” he said.