Wyoming schools see results from early-literacy efforts

By JACKIE BORCHARDT - Star-Tribune staff writer

The computer screen displayed three boxes with letters. Trapper Hallock’s task: Choose one letter from each group to make a three-letter word.

Hallock whispered the sound of each letter, clicking the mouse to move the letters back and forth until they fit like a puzzle.

f-e-d

Correct. Hallock sighed and began to rearrange new letters but abruptly stopped.

Time was up.

Hallock and his kindergarten classmates rotated stations every 15 minutes. While Hallock’s group worked on computers, others practiced phonics, listened to books on iPods and read aloud.

The activities only took up part of the 90-minute reading block at Mills Elementary School. Focused blocks of time are the norm in many elementary schools, an effort to boost student achievement in the way of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The 2001 law requires that every child be proficient in reading and math by 2014 and mandates annual testing to hold schools accountable. The ambitious goal pushed schools and districts toward improving achievement of all students.

It worked.

More students are achieving above basic levels, according to analysis of state test scores from the Center for Education Policy released last week. Wyoming test scores have improved, as has the high school graduation rate.

The goal

Natrona County schools improved as well from 2006 to 2009.

Only 63 percent of Natrona County third-graders read at or above grade level in spring 2007. Seventy-seven percent scored as well in spring 2010.

Educators point to the district’s No. 1 goal: All students will read at grade level by the end of third grade by 2014.

Educators consider third grade to be the critical point in literacy: Through third grade, students are learning to read. After third grade, they’re reading to learn.

And students who don’t read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times as likely not to graduate from high school on time as their proficient peers, according to a new study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The study followed 3,975 students from 1979 to 1989 and collected data about poverty, health and other living conditions. Of reading-proficient third-graders living at least one year in poverty, 26 percent don’t finish high school on time — six times the rate of all proficient readers. That rate rose to 31 and 33 percent for black and Hispanic students, respectively.

District officials linked third-grade reading to high school graduation in their own 2008 study. Third-graders who don’t read at-level are likely to be behind in fifth grade. Fifth-graders reading below level are likely to lose credit as a ninth-grader. Ninth-graders who lose one credit are less likely to graduate.

Natrona County measures reading at grade level by the Measures of Academic Progress test from the Northwest Education Association. The test, given multiple times each year, rates students against a national norm group.

If a student scores higher than 35 percent of the norm group, he or she is “at grade level.” Exceeding this bar increases the chances of performing well on the Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students, said Mike Flicek, director of assessment and research for Natrona County.

“If they’re reading at grade level, they have the reading skills necessary to do well on the PAWS — necessary but not always sufficient,” Flicek said.

Catching up

There’s no question early literacy skills — created by surrounding children with books and reading often — improve a child’s ability to read and read well. But storybook reading is attached to deep-rooted beliefs about child rearing and socialization, said Patrick Manyak, professor at the University of Wyoming.

Students living in poverty, who don’t speak English or whose parents did not teach much vocabulary before kindergarten, start behind.

Quality instruction by quality teachers can overcome the challenges children can’t change, Manyak said. The earlier teachers intervene, the better. Intensive, individual tutoring can bring middle school students up to level, Manyak said, but they will have to work harder than their peers who have years more practice behind them.

“We’d like to think more would [catch up] as we put more effort and attention into it,” he said, “but there’s a 90 percent probability they’re going to remain behind.”

Some schools, such as Mills, chose to raise the bar to 50 percent of norm. Their students don’t know the difference, said Kerri Flammang, who teaches fourth- and fifth-grade.

“If we have high expectations, then that becomes normal for them,” Flammang said. “If they’re at the 35th percentile, I’m not sure they’re going to be successful.”

Students take responsibility for their progress, Flammang said. They know where they stand and chronicle their improvement in data notebooks.

Responding to student data and sharing successful practices with other schools has helped, said Mike Bond, executive director of curriculum and instruction.

“We have wonderful, talented principals and teachers but sometimes, in the past, we might have lacked that alignment of those things,” Bond said.

Bond also credits support from federal funding. Schools with high populations of poor students receive funding for tutors, teacher development and technology.

“High-poverty schools can overcome those challenges,” Bond said. “That cannot be an excuse for why students are not learning.”

Although Mills has one of the highest poverty rates in the district, at 77 percent qualifying for free or reduced price meals, it also has one of the highest percentages of third-graders reading at grade level.

The students change every year, but quality instruction doesn’t, said Amy Russell, an instructional facilitator and reading specialist at Mills. Results stem from before- and after-school tutoring, small ability-based reading groups and encouraging students to read for 20 minutes every day.

“It’s been a hard road,” Russell said. “There’s not just one answer to it — it really does take everybody.”

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