Intensive Reading Program Aims to Help Older Students

New York, NY —

Elementary reading scores are going up in New York City. Six out of ten third graders are reading at or above grade level. But those gains don’t continue as kids get older. By eighth grade, fewer than 4 out of 10 kids are reading at grade level. Declining scores from elementary to middle school are a national trend. WNYC’s Beth Fertig reports on an intensive reading program New York City is using to help its older students.

REPORTER: If student are still struggling with reading by middle school, they might need to go all the way back to the basics.

TEACHER: OK so we did our vowels, now let’s do some of our consonants, B, Buh, V, Vuh.

REPORTER: These seventh graders at Intermediate School 218 in Washington Heights are learning phonics, the sounds of each letter.

TEACHER: S, snake, snah, KIDS: S snake snah

REPORTER: Phonics is usually mastered by third grade. But these 12 and 13 year-olds need a refresher course. Some are immigrants who are still new to English. But that’s not the only problem. It’s often said that we learn to read and then we read to learn. But kids who don’t fully absorb those basic reading lessons get stuck once the books get more challenging says Instructional support specialist Estella Sanchez.

SANCHEZ: And maybe the teachers never noticed they didn’t know the sounds because they memorized a lot of the text and they would read to you and you would not know the child did not learn it until later on.

REPORTER: Later, meaning when their reading scores went down.

A total of 24 kids from the 3 middle schools in this building were chosen for this intensive reading program. Each class has 12 students and meets for 90 minutes every day. The kids who were picked all scored among the lowest levels on their English Language Arts exams. But that wasn’t the only criteria. They also have a very specific problem with reading.

WILSON: A good number of them actually have trouble reading the words themselves. Or being able to pronounce or say the words.

REPORTER: Barbara Wilson is the author of the Wilson Reading System. The highly structured program is used around the country and it’s now being phased into the New York City schools. Wilson created her step-by-step approach for older kids with learning disabilities like dyslexia. But it’s also used for any students who have difficulty decoding. That’s education-speak for figuring out a word by knowing how different letters go together.

WILSON: And they stumble over the words, they misread the words, they read very slowly, they skip over words and as a result they struggle with anything that they’re reading

REPORTER: Wilson’s program gives the kids different strategies. Sometimes they say the sounds.

TEACHER: SH- sh, CH – ch

REPORTER: Sometimes they draw whole words with their fingers

TEACHER AND KIDS: A-P-P-R-O-V-E, approve

REPORTER: And sometimes they break down words into separate syllables.

TEACHER: So what does this syllable say, GIRL: Tell. TEACHER: that’s okay honey let’s tap it.

REPORTER: The middle schoolers in this class know they’re too old to be doing this stuff. A few seem frustrated and some have spotty attendance. Their teacher, Lucy Narvaez says the program recognizes this by keeping the kids engaged.

NARVAEZ: now we’ll do dictation, we’re actually preparing them for the actual writing. But before we get to that point we use a multi-sensory approach.

REPORTER: Thirteen year old Jennifer says the program IS making a difference. She finds it easier to read a word now when she gets stuck.

JENNIFER: Like before I used to like, instead of really sounding it out, I used to be whatever, it doesn’t matter. Now I’m learning, I’m getting the habit to divide up words and stuff like that. REPORTER: So what happens when you go to your other classes now? JENNIFER I understand better the words, and I know how to sound them out and I can help other kids, too.

REPORTER: The city’s Education Department has trained nearly 4000 teachers in the Wilson Reading program in the past 3 years. Most of them work in the lower grades. But a couple of hundred are working with middle and high school kids to reverse the decline in test scores.

It’s too soon to know if it’s working- there’s no hard data. Wilson is among several specialized reading programs the city is trying. The Bloomberg Administration has also expanded after-school and weekend tutoring. But critics believe these interventions don’t solve one big problem: class size. They say it’s no coincidence that test scores take a nose dive in the middle grades, when classes grow to 28 or 30 students. However, Chancellor Joel Klein says his priority is training teachers.

KLEIN: To me – and I’ve underscored this many times - the most important thing is high quality teachers. And we would also want to consider class size. But if you lower class size and don’t get high quality teachers, which is what I’m saying is the initial challenge, you’re going to make the problem worse, particularly in our high needs schools.

REPORTER: At Intermediate School 218 in Washington Heights, only 28 percent of 6th graders met the standards on this year’s English Language Arts exam – and just 14 percent of 8th graders. The school is being restructured along with the other two in its building. Principal June Barnett is hopeful about the Wilson Reading program. She says her 7 kids who started it last year did make improvements.

BARNETT: So you saw some change in their writing and most of all you saw some positive behavior and attitude, in the confidence that they’re doing better in reading. It’s not as quick as they would want it to be. I mean the kids always want to get it right, right now. And that’s not the case. This takes time.

TEACHER: “Great job see you tomorrow.”

REPORTER: Barnett says there are probably 20 more students who could benefit from these smaller, intensive reading classes. She hopes the city will find the resources to expand the program. As she tells the parents of her students, ‘if we don’t do this now we’re NOT going to do it right.’ For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig.