After years of ignoring reading instruction, Long Beach's content-area teachers are learning to help students master academic text.
by Anne C. Lewis
Like the black sheep of a family, teaching reading skills to middle school
students used to be a subject everyone avoided. Reading was the responsibility
of elementary schools, most middle grades teachers agreed. "We weren't
trained to do it, and we certainly shouldn't have to do it" was a common
teacher-lounge refrain.
When the numbers of weak middle-grades readers continued to mount, the problem
became harder to avoid. In predictable fashion, the national "education
pendulum" swung to the other side, and a new middle school mantra emerged:
"All teachers must be teachers of reading." That, as it turned
out, was a lot easier said than done.
In Long Beach, fortunately, educators have begun to find some middle ground.
The district's leadership does not expect all teachers to become expert
reading instructors - a process that requires several years of college coursework
and daily practice. But they do expect middle school faculties to emphasize
reading much more than in the past - and to learn some basic techniques
that can help struggling adolescent readers master the printed word.
To accomplish this task, the district is pushing a multi-strand professional
development program for teachers that targets two major needs: providing
more help for students who lack fundamental reading skills, and promoting
more challenging reading in the various subjects students study each day.
Eighth grade history teacher John McVay says the district's campaign to
improve reading in the middle grades "is pretty much a self-defense
strategy for teachers. I don't see where we have much choice." At Hill
Middle School, McVay explains, "one of the issues I am really struggling
with is the sheer ability for some of my students to read, especially in
my sheltered English classes."
In one of his 7th grade classes last year, his students had an average reading
score at the 11th percentile. "So I feel like I'm facing the double
challenge of not only presenting them the material in history but working
on the reading skills, which also relate to writing and everything else."
Building a Better Reading Program
The enthusiasm and determination of two LBUSD reading experts provide much
of the steam behind the district's drive to raise reading performance. Professional
development coordinator Cecelia Osborn and specialist Stefanie Holzman conduct
research together, share what they are learning about the best reading practices,
and argue over what will be most effective in Long Beach's diverse, urban
classrooms.
They say they are willing to try just about anything to help teachers make
sure youngsters are good readers and understand what they are reading. Their
search for "what works" has led them, for example, from a heavy
emphasis on helping students comprehend texts to a more phonics-based approach
which they began to introduce this year. "There is no single route,"
Osborn says. "The answers have to remain open. The one thing we are
very sure of is that we can help students, so we absolutely cannot give
up."
As an outgrowth of all their professional homework, Osborn and Holzman have
developed two staff development programs to strengthen middle school reading.
The first - Content Area Teaching (CAT) - helps math, science, history and
language arts teachers learn skills that make it easier for students to
understand difficult textbooks and other academic reading material. With
the help of some state grant money, Osborn and Holzman are able to group
teachers by subject area and focus on the special reading requirements of
the different disciplines.
The CAT sessions are now launched with two-day workshops before the school
year, followed by four Saturday workshops. Providing teachers with released
time during the school year for a series of six all-day workshops (as was
done last year) proved too expensive. But the importance of feedback - giving
teachers strategies that they try out and reflect on at the next session
- is still emphasized.
Two other professional development strands support teachers involved in
a district intervention for struggling readers. Auditory Discrimination
in Depth is an intensive program for a limited number of students who have
the greatest difficulty with reading. The Middle School Reading Institute
(MSRI) gives specialized help to teachers who teach reading development,
English language development, and special education classes.
The Four Pillars of Reading
Struggling middle-school readers must have four supports, says Osborn: specially
trained teachers, more time, smaller classes and individualized materials.
"If you don't have all of these components," she contends, "you
can't turn them into successful readers."
At DeMille Middle School, sixth-grade problem readers - identified by test
scores and diagnostic tools - attend an extra reading class every day where
two reading development teachers show the same passion for their work as
do Osborn and Holzman. Describing Kathy Wysocki and Linda Steele, a colleague
noted that "when you have two teachers who finish each others' sentences,
you know they are a team."
Wysocki and Steele use independent reading, focus groups, and work on specific
skills to bring their students up to grade level in reading. They are particularly
concerned about students' failure to comprehend non-fiction texts, which
are often packed with detail and difficult vocabulary. The teachers also
watch for clues about a student's reading fluency - the ability to read
for a consecutive amount of time without flagging. English-language development
students, for example, "don't do well on tests because they don't have
time to get through the text," Wysocki says.
To get the most from a text students need to connect to something they already
know, says Steele, "and be aware that the brain is making a picture.
That's a strategy used by good readers." As a way of helping their
students "think" about texts in different situations, they give
them a simple sheet to fill out in their core subject classrooms that lists
the topics being studied. Then students write "how I connected and
to what" for each subject, bringing their comments back to the teachers
for a grade.
This is a strategy Wysocki and Steele learned from their participation in
MSRI. Both were experienced reading teachers, but they realized the skills
they learned long ago did not always work with older students. Research
on middle school reading strategies has only recently come into its own,
and until the institutes started two years ago, LBUSD teachers had no organized
way of becoming familiar with a rapidly growing body of knowledge about
teaching reading in the middle grades. Steele praises the Institute, which
also offers advanced courses, for "refocusing" middle school teachers
on the strategies that are most effective for adolescents.
Smaller Classes Are a Big Plus
At Franklin Middle School, the merged classrooms of another team of "veteran"
MSRI teachers are lively examples of the different ways to engage students
in reading strategies. The students composed a poster on the wall telling
what "Good Readers" do: "See a movie in their head,"
"like to read," "can tell you what a book is all about,"
"read aloud to their family." Reading development teacher Mark
Spinharney reads aloud to his students, constantly asking questions about
the text, such as how to understand from the rest of a sentence what the
word "innards" means. Another exercise engages the students in
using descriptive words, like finding all the words that describe "fly
swatter."
Spinharney and teammate Marjia McKenzie are experienced teachers but fairly
new to reading development classes. "I went for the best possible teachers
for reading development," says Franklin's Principal Tom Lau. "The
neediest students need the best teachers." The team works all year
with sixth-grade students scoring in the lowest 25th percentile on the state's
SAT-9 test, and spends 10 weeks a year with 7th and 8th graders. Coming
from a regular classroom of 35 students, Spinharney knew immediately that
the smaller classes were a plus for students. He had focused on writing
in the core "but in such large classes you are not going to pick up
kids who are not getting it or be able to help them as much as they need."
Both teachers credit the MSRI training with giving them confidence. "Everything
we learned was backed up by professional reading," says Spinharney,
"and every session started with feedback. We were told to try three
strategies, and bring student work based on them to show at the next session.
That made us get our hands dirty." McKenzie says the variety of reading
strategies are gradually building confidence in hesitant readers. "When
they volunteer to read aloud or try a word they don't know, then we know
we're making progress."
Bringing Principals Into the Picture
Overall, readings scores on the SAT-9 did not improve in 1999, and Osborn
and Holzman continue to experiment with solutions. As one check on the effectiveness
of in-service training, Osborn is designing a research project to compare
the achievement of middle school students as a whole and students in reading
classes where the teachers are highly trained.
Osburn estimates the school district now has a cadre of 10-15 strong middle
school reading teachers who are applying research-based strategies, and
another group who knows the strategies but applies them only sporadically.
Moving those teachers forward, and constantly training new teachers as they
come into the system, is a huge job without any definite end-point. But
as slow as the process is, the district can take some satisfaction that
middle grades reading is now a "front burner" issue - when only
two years ago it was barely recognized as a professional development need.
Osburn believes the progress will be sustained, in part because LBUSD's
middle school principals have embraced reading development as a core strategy
in raising student achievement. Just like teachers, principals participated
last year in a series of sessions on recognizing good literacy practices
in their classrooms. Principals learned many of the specifics of good middle
grades reading instruction and discussed how to use the district's literacy
standards as part of teacher evaluations. Most of all, says Osborn, they
heard the message over and over again "that struggling readers need
smaller classes, specially trained teachers, more time, and different materials."
Hill principal Robin Samana said the literacy seminars "have been really
powerful for me. Even though I was trained to teach reading as an elementary
school teacher, to go back and revisit it is eye-opening. Being forced to
take examples and to say, okay, how is it that you actually read and decode?
How do you figure out the meaning? That's really helpful."
As a result of the training, principals are beginning to ask some of their
most talented staff to become reading development teachers. For Stephens'
Mike Troyer, the literacy training gave him "a better perspective on
how new teachers or those I am evaluating could have supported learning
from texts better."
He and other middle school principals are participating in additional literacy
training this year.
Another sign that the district is getting a handle on the reading problem
is anecdotal but heartening. Osborn says sixth-grade teachers report incoming
students are better readers than in the past, suggesting that the district's
parallel efforts in elementary school are beginning to pay off. Principal
Tom Lau has even more solid proof. Because sixth graders are entering better
prepared, he says, Franklin - once overwhelmed with students with limited
English skills - has cut its bilingual classes in half.
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