Category: Structured Literacy

District level advocacy results in change

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District level advocacy results in change:
Lessons from San Francisco Unified School District

Years of advocating for improvements to San Francisco Unified School District’s literacy plan are finally paying off. What started as a few people speaking up at occasional board meetings has grown to an energized movement that has won the attention of district leadership, the school board, local community, and the media. 

San Francisco USD has been a balanced literacy district for many years. Some of the most well known balanced literacy programs include Lucy Calkins Units of Study, Fountas & Pinnell Classroom, Fountas & Pinnell LLI, and Reading Recovery. You will find all of these programs in SFUSD schools. Balanced literacy materials and methods do not work for a large percentage of kids, and are especially inappropriate, even harmful, to those with dyslexia, yet SFUSD has stood by this model for many years, until now. As a result of growing advocacy, the district may be on the cusp of change.

What lessons can we learn from San Francisco, to help build a movement in other districts:

1. Build a coalition
The San Francisco Dyslexia Parent Support Group served as a critical space for parents to meet, learn from one another, and join forces. At their monthly virtual meetings, parents helped one another understand their children’s needs and how to get them help. Fed up with what they had to go through, many parents then turned their energy towards improving the system so others won’t experience the same heartache and expense. 

Teachers who understand the problem also joined the movement. As a result of a wave of recent media attention and exploding facebook groups on the topic, many educators have realized they weren’t sufficiently prepared to teach kids to read.  Teachers are learning the district-provided materials and the assessment and intervention practices they are told to follow are ineffective. Not all teachers feel safe raising criticisms of their employer, which is why the voices of those who choose to speak out are so important. 

A variety of other professionals, including psychologists, a pediatrician, and leaders from business and the public sector, added diverse perspectives on the problem. The literacy coalition also connected with other parent and community groups, which helped to amplify their message.

2. Expose the problem
Having the statistics on student performance in your district is critical. You need to know where the gaps are because the general district data often does not reveal which students’ needs are not being met. Two helpful resources are here and here.

In the case of San Francisco, the student achievement data showed a catastrophic problem. But, it was the findings of a K-5 curriculum audit, which elevated the conversation. All of a sudden, the typical excuses weren’t acceptable, as the findings of the audit pointed to a new why behind low reading performance: majorly deficient curriculum and methods of instruction. 

3. Get involved
In San Francisco, members of the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education have advocated for screening for risk of dyslexia and structured literacy for years.

Every district has stakeholder groups, such as CACs, LCAP Advisory Committees, School Site Councils and parent groups such as PTAs. These bodies offer important platforms for advocacy. When people advocate from across diverse committees and associations, leadership listens.

Connect with one of the eighteen Decoding Dyslexia CA parent support groups. If there is not a group in your community, we’ll help you get one started. You can email us at info@decodingdyslexiaca.org.

4. Spread the message
In just this past school year, members of the San Francisco coalition wrote op-eds, hosted inspiring talks and informational events, and brave teachers fed up with SFUSD’s practices were even radio show guests. Love it or hate it, social media is also important in growing a movement, and advocates got vocal there too.

So, the work is not near over yet, but the real conversation has begun. San Francisco advocates await the second wave of curriculum audit findings, expected in September, and from there they hope the district will develop a literacy plan based in the science of reading that San Francisco students deserve.

Too many student’s can’t read

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The image above is from the cover of the CCSSO report A Nation of Readers

Thanks to Carol Kocivar and Ed100.org for co-authoring this insightful blog.

 

California’s literacy crisis

By almost any standard, California is failing to meet its most basic education goal: literacy. Millions of students struggle to read.

This conclusion isn’t based on just one test. Numerous indicators document this failure. Happily, we know what to do about it. Change will require action in every school.

Start with the data

Year after year, the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) has shown that most California students are not proficient in reading. This is the only assessment that measures what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects across the nation, states, and in some urban districts.

This failure isn’t just a figment of how the national test is designed. California’s Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments show similar disturbing results. At every grade level, about half of students do not meet English Language Arts Literacy Standards.

 

The California Reading Report Card draws similar conclusions from the CAASPP data. “… today, half of California’s students do not read at grade level. What’s worse, among low-income students of color, over 65% read below grade level. Few ever catch up.”

Diagnose the problem

The problem is not your usual suspects — poverty, lack of resources or non-English home language. The problem is how schools teach reading.

According to the California Reading Report Card:

“ …it is not the students themselves, or the level of resources, that drive student reading achievement — the primary drivers are district focus on reading, management practices, and curriculum and instruction choices.…

“The 30 top achieving districts come in all types: urban, rural, and suburban, across 10 different counties, with high-need students levels ranging from 39% to 96%. Any district can succeed at teaching reading.”

The report card was designed to measure how well schools teach reading, separate from the contributions of outside resources.

How is your school district doing? Find out here.

Embrace the science of reading

Learning to read doesn’t happen naturally — it has to be taught. Years of scientific research have revealed a great deal about how reading develops. This body of knowledge from the fields of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, education and others is referred to as the science of reading. See summaries here and here.

Replace approaches that don’t work

Even though so much is known about reading, there is a wide gap between the science and the teaching in the classroom. Recognizing the difference between typical practices and structured literacy, the kind of teaching based on science, is important.

It’s not just a matter of preference or the swing of a pendulum. Common teaching approaches rely on cueing, a practice we now understand impedes reading development. Cueing encourages children to guess words based on pictures and context clues. It is one among several problems embedded in typical teaching practices and curricula. The “Route to Reading Avoid a Lemon” video helps parents spot problematic instruction.

Why is it so hard for schools to get early reading right? Many teachers have not been trained in evidence-based methods, popular instructional materials don’t reflect the science, and districts across California have already sunk millions of dollars into teaching methods based on discredited theory.

Learn lessons from a dyslexia lawsuit

Policymakers need to look closely at the terms of a proposed settlement agreement in a federal class action lawsuit against Berkeley Unified. The plaintiffs argue, in part, that the district failed to appropriately identify children at risk of reading difficulty. Exhibit A of the settlement agreement contains a detailed proposal to develop a literacy improvement program. It includes research-based assessment plans as well as reading programs and recommends limited use of Fountas & Pinnell LLI and Reading Recovery in cases involving students with suspected reading disabilities.

What should California do?

California is not alone in its need for better reading policies. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) focused on literacy in its 2021 report A Nation of Readers.

The California statewide literacy task force to help all students reach the goal of literacy by third grade, by 2026, presents the opportunity to do better. Recommendations will be introduced in the 2022 legislative session. We hope they include the following:

Key Recommendations for Legislation
Universal screening Screen all students K-2 for risk of reading difficulties. Many states already do short universal screenings appropriate for the students’ age and cultures. Learn more about California’s pending screening legislation SB 237 here.
Respond quickly to student needs Provide guidance and support to schools with the implementation of evidence-based programs to give students the level of support they need when they need it, an approach called Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS). A slightly struggling student needs less support than a child with more serious learning needs. English Learners may have different needs.
Replace outdated instruction School districts should replace outdated literacy methods and adopt structured literacy for all students. Reading is not something that comes naturally. All students benefit from a curriculum that meets their needs in the areas of foundational skills and reading comprehension. See primer.
Invest in a better curriculum Provide school districts with additional funding to invest in highly rated, culturally relevant curriculum with evidence of improving student achievement for students who struggle to read. EdReports is a good resource for researching curricula.
Teach educators how to teach reading Provide ongoing professional development and coaching of teachers, administrators, and support staff in the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of instruction based in science.
Improve reading instruction at schools of education Right now, too many teacher candidates graduate without learning how to teach the updated approach to reading. Education professors and education schools need to learn the updated science of reading including the California Dyslexia Guidelines and include it in teacher preparation coursework, as defined in the new California law SB 488.
Help parents help their children Parents can benefit from training on how to support early readers at home. Tennessee’s recent Free Decodables to Use at Home to Build Strong Reading Skills initiative is a good example of how to extend learning at home. Families are provided free “sound out books” along with guidance for helping their children learn how to read. Schools can work with PTAs and other community organizations to support this effort.

Megan Potente, M.Ed. is Co-State Director for Decoding Dyslexia CA, a grassroots movement made up of parents, educators and other professionals dedicated to raising awareness and improving access to resources for students with dyslexia in California public schools. Megan has 20 years of experience working in elementary education, including roles as a classroom teacher, special education teacher, reading specialist and literacy coach. She is the parent of a thirteen year old son with dyslexia and co-leads the San Francisco Dyslexia Parent Support Group.