New campaign aims to boost reading skills in Natrona County

By JACKIE BORCHARDT - Star-Tribune staff writer

The school district in Kennewick, Wash., shocked the community in 1995 with a visionary goal: 90 percent of all third-graders would read at grade level.

At the time, only 58 percent of third-grade students read at or above grade level. The district reached the goal — 11 years later — with 89.9 percent of its 1,061 third-graders testing at or above grade level in 2006.

District officials hatched a three-fold plan, said Nancy Kerr, former school board member in Kennewick and president of the Children’s Reading Foundation. First, find a curriculum. Second, expand teachers’ reading instruction strategies from a handful to eight or nine. Third, rally community support.

“This needs to be something that’s not just the schools’ jobs,” Kerr said. “If everyone can be involved and assume an appropriate role, they will make this a goal and it will change the future for these kids.”

A massive media campaign spread the message — “Read together for 20 minutes every day.” Within two years, 98 percent of the community knew the message and 97 percent approved of it, Kerr said.

Natrona County embarks on a similar effort this month called “We Read.” Every child in kindergarten through third grade will receive a free, age-appropriate book every month for the next three years. Every family in Natrona County will receive a free copy of the Star-Tribune on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The newspaper includes a section called “My Trib” for children to read. My Trib suggests activities tied to the free books and tips for parents to engage their children in reading and writing. My Trib will feature a chapter from two serial stories to encourage families to read together every week. A marketing campaign will encourage everyone to engage in reading and establish literacy as a community value.

The million-dollar-plus partnership among the school district, Star-Tribune, Natrona County Public Library, private foundations and businesses is the largest effort yet to reach the district’s literacy goal: 100 percent of third-graders reading at grade level by 2014.

“This has a lot of potential to be a national model for how schools and parents and districts can work together,” said Mike Bond, executive director of curriculum and instruction for Natrona County. “What we’re providing are resources to students and parents as well as the schools. These are tools they can use with parents at home.”

Free books can’t change a culture that doesn’t enjoy story time, said Steven Bialostok, a University of Wyoming professor. Free delivery doesn’t mean people will read newspapers.

Bialostok defines literacy in two ways: as an event, such as reading a book, or as a practice, the understanding and knowledge behind the event. Too often, Bialostok said, literacy is limited to reading books and excludes daily reading and writing such as text messaging or posting on Facebook.

“Kids read things all the time, but unless we can control what they read, then it’s not considered legitimate,” Bialstok said. “We live in a world where educators just don’t understand that the reading and writing, the demands of literacy, have changed altogether.”

Bialostok challenges teachers to plan activities that generate reading and writing. For example, a first-grade teacher could set up a play garage where students write work orders, process bills and read complaints while pretending to fix cars.

“So much instruction can be built around what kids care deeply about, what they find relevant,” Bialostok said.

His own son learned to read by “reading cars” — walking down rows in parking lots, reading the make and model printed on each vehicle. He moved on to reading car brochures, anything about cars.

He didn’t like “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” but he learned to read anyway, Bialostok said, and is now a successful college student.

“When you make it relevant and interesting to kids, they read and write all types of matter,” Bialostok said.

“We need to stop thinking about literacy as something we own, but as something we do.”

Read more: http://trib.com/news/local/article_2b159bbc-938f-5f18-81b5-a0274806499e.html