Schools Try New Approach to Boost Student Literacy

Nancy C. Rodriguez
The Courier-Journal, Louisville KY
(Reprinted here with permission, The Courier-Journal)

Teacher Malisa Russell faced her class of Bernheim Middle School seventh-graders and began calling out short phrases.

"Paint a picture," the Bullitt County teacher said. Several students raised their hands, and one offered the correct answer: "Explain."

Russell moved on to another clue: "Read between the lines." "Infer," a student called out.

It's not unusual to use word games to build students' vocabulary and literacy skills. Except Russell is a math teacher, instructing her students on concepts such as percent of change, equivalent ratio and proportion.

Starting this year at Bernheim though, improving student literacy is everyone's job.

"I felt like I always left the reading and writing to the reading and writing teachers," said Matt Murphy, who teaches computer applications. "But now all of us have that responsibility."

Bernheim is not alone.

Twenty-one middle and high schools around the state are trying the new approach as part of a five-year, federally funded program aimed at boosting literacy among middle and high school students -- two groups that have traditionally been overlooked in favor of targeting literacy in lower grades.

As a result, nationally and in Kentucky, reading scores at the middle and high school levels have lagged behind elementary grades. The slide in Kentucky begins in middle school, and by high school shows an almost 10-point gap, with almost 60 percent of high school students scoring below proficiency on state reading exams.

"A lot of people think that by the time students get to middle school or to high school they should have the basic skills they need to have," said Amy Awbrey, a project director at The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning, a Louisville-based nonprofit that created the literacy model being used by the schools. "Of course, we know they don't."

National concern

The program in Kentucky -- called the Kentucky Content Literacy Consortium -- is funded through a $17 million Striving Readers grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Danville Independent Schools in Boyle County is the recipient of the grant, but the consortium also includes six others school districts, The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning, the University of Louisville, the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development at the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Department of Education.

For Bernheim Middle School, the grant has been a "great opportunity," said Principal Julie Buckner.

The 473-student school has struggled on state student achievement tests in several areas, including in writing, math and Social Studies. But Buckner hopes the grant will help the school reduce its numbers of struggling readers and raise test scores.

"The teachers have embraced it, and are trying to implement a lot of what they've learned," she said.

The Bush administration launched the $24.8 million Striving Readers program last year after mounting national concerns about poor reading skills among middle and high school students.

As many as 6 million middle and high school students cant read at acceptable levels, according to estimates from the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based education policy research and advocacy group.

And it's not just an issue for low-performing students. A report released last spring that looked at the reading skills of college-bound students who took the ACT exam found that only 51 percent were prepared for college-level reading.
Educators say older students struggle for many reasons, and it is difficult to pin down a single cause.

Factors include the rising number of students learning English, as well as poor teaching methods, chaotic home lives, low expectations for some students, cultural bias and the fact that older students simply don't read enough.

Eight Striving Readers grants were given out last spring by the government.

For more information, contact:
Amy Awbrey
(502) 895-9500 x318