Saturday, February 29, 2020

Literacy Instruction and Student Reading Proficiency: The Multi-Tiered Whole Must be Greater than the Sum of Its Disconnected Parts (Part I)


How a Comprehensive Blueprint Prevents Isolated Solutions and Inconsistent Results


Dear Colleagues,

[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message]

Introduction

   Well. . . “all of a sudden,” there has been a nationwide rush of policy, publication, media, and legal attention to students’ academic outcomes. . . in the area of reading. And interestingly, from a national and state proficiency perspective—at least as measured by tests like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and annual state standards/proficiency assessments, not much has changed.

   And that, in fact, is the problem.

   With all of the attention and billions of dollars invested over the past twenty years in improving student reading, student progress still is lacking... especially for students of color and students with disabilities.

   And for all of the national reading “experts”—who have tried to address literacy at the curriculum and instruction levels, at the assessment to intervention levels, and at the student policy to practice levels—once again, progress is lacking.

   And, I’m not blaming. . . I’m just exclaiming.
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   While there are many triggers to this “new” (actually, déjà vu) national focus on literacy instruction and student proficiency, let me mention a few.

  • First:  Last week, on February 20, 2020, as part of a legal settlement agreement, the state of California agreed to provide $53 million for early (Kindergarten to Grade 3) literacy instruction—and a range of services to support this—for 75 Los Angeles schools with the highest concentrations of 3rd grade students scoring at the lowest level on the state’s reading tests.

This court-approved amount settles a 2017 lawsuit that maintained that the Plaintiff’s constitutional rights by failing to teach them to read. The Plaintiff’s were children from two schools in the Los Angeles area, and one child from Stockton. These children sued the California Board of Education, the State Education Department, and the State Superintendent for Education.

[CLICK HERE for Recent Education Week story]

If that did not get the attention of state departments of education across the country, I’m not sure what will.
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  • Second:  Across the country, many states are realizing that their laws—requiring schools to retain students who are not reading at grade level at the end of Third Grade—are not resulting in substantially more students who are proficient in the different areas of reading.

Some of these states have now decided that pre-service teacher preparation programs and post-employment professional development offerings are lacking a sound and evidence-based focus on the science of reading. 

Thus, they are now passing legislation that requires that these two groups of teachers (predominantly at the elementary school level) master reading instruction that is grounded in scientific research. Significantly, some of these laws have specified that teachers need to demonstrate competence in the five components of reading and in other skill areas (e.g., receptive/expressive language, students’ experiential and content knowledge) that contribute to reading proficiency.

Critically, some of this legislation has focused only on teacher knowledge of typical learners. . . rather than on the knowledge and understanding of able, struggling, and disabled readers, and on ensuring that classroom teachers behaviorally demonstrate differentiated instruction and other, related skills, behaviors, and interactions.

Some—but not all—of this legislation has focused on the fact that many university-based (and other) teacher training programs have faculty (as well as clinical and internship supervisors, and other coaches) who do not know (and/or reinforce) the reading science-to-practice. . . but need to.

And some—most, in fact—of the involved legislators have focused on isolated “pieces of the literacy puzzle” without understanding (a) the complexity of the puzzle, (b) which pieces are missing, and (c) which pieces are interdependent with others.
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According to Education Week, in the past three years alone, eleven states have enacted laws to better ensure that evidence-based reading instruction is occurring, at least, in Kindergarten through Grade 3. Significantly, a number of states are expected to follow suit—increasing this number during the coming spring legislative sessions. 

[CLICK HERE for this recent Education Week story]

This is interesting because, in May 2015 (not five years ago), the International Literacy Association reported that (a) up to 34 states had no specific professional teaching standards in reading for elementary teachers; (b) up to 24 states had no literacy or reading course requirements; (c) many states had no practicum or internship requirements for literacy practice and supervision; and (d) many states did not require a test to assess competency in reading instruction for teacher-licensure candidates.

[CLICK HERE for our October, 2016 Blog message on:

“Braiding Five Critical Concerns for Children: Reading Instruction, Grade Retention, Skill Remediation, Response-to-Intervention, and Chronic Absences. Why Effective Practice Needs to Dictate Good Policy (Rather than the Other Way Around).”
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  • Third:  Two recent surveys—of 3,500 principals by the RAND Corp.’s American Educator Panel program, and 1,467 special education teachers in the Council for Exceptional Children’s “State of the Special Education Profession” report—noted that:

* Many principals—especially in schools serving more students of color—felt that they could be doing more to support students with disabilities, but that they felt unprepared to meet these students’ needs as school leaders;

This is significant given that (a) the largest percentage of students with disabilities in most schools are identified as having learning disabilities in reading; and (b) most states in this country have demonstrated extremely poor outcomes relative to improving the reading proficiency of these students.

[CLICK HERE for this February 13, 2020 Education Dive article]
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What’s Missing in Our Country’s Attempts to Improve Reading?

   Education Week crystallized many of the issues discussed above in a special report, “Getting Reading Right,” that was published on December 4, 2019.

[CLICK HERE for the Report]

   Some of the important points made in this Report included the following:

  • Learning to read is arguably the most important academic experience students will have during their school years. But it’s not a given.
  • The “nation’s report card” shows that just 35% of 4th graders are proficient readers despite decades of cognitive research clarifying exactly what skills students need to be taught to read fluently. 
  • The cognitive science is clear: Teaching systematic phonics is the most reliable way to ensure that children learn how to read words. 
  • And yet, most K-2 teachers and education professors are using instructional methods that run counter to the cognitive science. 
  • These flawed methods for teaching reading are often passed down through cherished mentors, popular literacy programs, and respected professional groups.
  • Many teachers leave preservice training without clarity on what the cognitive science says about how students learn to read.
  • An analysis of the five most-used programs for early reading shows that they often diverge from evidence-based practices.

   While a significant contribution to our national discussion, I believe that this discussion has not maximized its effects on all students because of three missing factors:
  • We are not conceptualizing literacy instruction and students’ reading proficiency within a systemic, ecological, multi-factored, and multi-tiered continuum that is built on evidence-based blueprints.
  •  We are developing and implementing policies, procedures, processes, and practices in disorganized, segmented, and disparate ways such that “whole has holes, and the parts never add up to a whole.”
  • We are not effectively using the psychoeducational research relative to child development, learning and cognition, psychometrics and assessment, and data-based decision-making and evaluation.
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   The rest of this Blog (Part I) presents the essential blueprints that must be considered when “piecing together” a sound multi-tiered system of literacy instruction and supports.

   These blueprints include the following:

   Blueprint 1: The Principles Underlying Effective Educational Policy
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   Blueprint 2: A Psychoeducational Science-to-Practice Blueprint for Effective Literacy Instruction and Multi-Tiered Services and Supports

   The seven flaws and ten scientifically-based practices that create an effective, comprehensive multi-tiered system of supports for literacy.
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   Blueprint 3: Understanding the Instructional Environment and Its Contribution to Student Reading Proficiency
  • Teacher/Instructional Factors
  • Curriculum and Support Factors
  • Student Learning and Mastery Factors
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   Blueprint 4. The Data-based Problem-Solving Blueprint for Struggling and Failing Readers
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   Blueprint 5. The Seven High-Hit Reasons Why Students Struggling or Fail in Reading
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   Blueprint 6: The Multi-tiered Positive Academic Supports and Services Continuum
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   Part II of this Blog series will continue to discuss the state of literacy intervention (linking Blueprint 5 and Blueprint 6), and the multi-tiered questions needed to address the needs of struggling readers and students with reading disabilities.
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[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message]

   I hope that this Blog provides a comprehensive perspective of the complexity of literacy instruction in our schools, and the challenges that we face in helping more students to become proficient readers.

   I appreciate the time that you invest in reading these Blogs, and your dedication to your students, your colleagues, and the educational process.

   Please feel free to send me your thoughts and questions. 

   And please know that I continue to work on-site with schools across the country. . . helping them to maximize their instructional and support resources as they fully implement these blueprints with high levels of success and impressive student outcomes.

   I would love to work with your school or district. Contact me at any time.

Best,

Howie


[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message]

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