Shirley's reading specialist notes progress in town's students
Shirley Oracle, Article by Dina Samfield, July 2, 2010

SHIRLEY -- A recent report commissioned by Strategies for Children (SFC) states that "despite Massachusetts' well-earned reputation as a national leader in education, 43 percent of the state's third-graders score below proficient on the MCAS reading test."

According to the report, Massachusetts also has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation, with nearly two-thirds of third graders from low-income families scoring below proficient in reading on the MCAS.

SFC is an independent nonprofit organization designed to help ensure that all children have access to high-quality early education.

Shirley elementary school reading specialist Jenn Traverso is already working proactively to help children overcome any obstacles to becoming proficient readers.

"Research shows that children who do not attain literacy skills, including reading and writing, by third grade, struggle to catch up," said Traverso, who will soon be in her third year at the Lura A. White (LAW) Elementary School.

"Third grade marks the critical turning point when children make the transition from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn.' Our goal is to catch kids before they fall," she said.

In just two years, Traverso has seen a trend in the data indicating that the program she has put in place is yielding positive results. The data also helps her to fine-tune the program so that it best serves those students who need help with phonemic awareness and oral reading fluency.

"Part of it is anticipating which children are going to struggle to learn to read. We're trying to be very proactive," she said recently in her office. "We start with a survey in kindergarten at the beginning of the year, and we survey all (K-4) kids in the school three times a year. Last year we served 77 students, and this year we served 80."

Asked how she monitors the progress of her students, she replied, "for different grade levels there are different indicators for success. In kindergarten, we are looking at letter naming fluency and phoneme separation fluency. In first grade we look at nonsense word and oral reading fluency, and in grades two through four we look at oral reading fluency."

Traverso, who received her master's degree in reading literacy and is also the Shirley School District Title I director, uses a three-tier model to serve students who need extra help in these areas.

Tier I includes a core reading program grounded in scientifically based reading research, she says. At this level, the program and classroom instruction address phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Classroom teachers at LAW use the elementary reading comprehension program Reading Street with all students for 90 minutes per day. They also use Wilson Foundations, a phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling program for grades K-3, three to five times weekly for 20 minutes.

Traverso and her assistants, reading specialist Beth Foster and paraprofessional Lauren Dill, use a quick, accurate benchmark test known as DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) at least three times per year to determine students' instructional needs. The students are also given the Scott Foresman Reading Street Benchmark Assessment and Unit tests, and grades two through four are given MAZE, a test that includes multiple-choice answers within a short reading passage.

In addition, classroom teachers do subsequent monitoring of the progress of all students who scored below the initial benchmark. The data that is collected serves to guide the reading instruction provided by the teachers.

The second tier of the program provides small group instruction to students who score below benchmark criteria in one or more critical areas of reading. According to Traverso, students who progress to grade level are exited, and their progress is monitored to assure on-level reading. Those who do not exit are provided with the third tier of intervention. Tutoring at this level is more intensive and includes more explicit instruction that is designed to meet the individual needs of struggling readers.

The data from student testing at LAW reveals that for kindergartners, there has been a marked increase in students' abilities in letter naming fluency, a jump from 56 percent mastery in 2007, to 92 percent in 2010. Traverso says that in phonemic segmentation fluency, "the measure I want kids to leave kindergarten with," students went from 58 percent mastery in 2007, to 96 percent in 2010.

In first grade, mastery of oral reading fluency skills, which shows recognition of sight words, has gone from 68 percent in 2007, to 79 percent in 2010. In second grade, the same test reveals that from 2007 to 2010, mastery has increased from 66 percent to 78 percent. The testing is done by grade level, so the results do not show the progress of the same groups of students from year to year. However, they do give Traverso a good idea of what interventions work best.

The tests also have a high correlation with MCAS scores, said Traverso, as is revealed in the MCAS scores of last year's LAW third-graders, who were taking that test for the first time. The DIBELS test indicated that they scored 69 percent in the low risk (high achievement) category for reading skills. That same year, 68 percent of third-grade students scored in the proficient or above proficient category of the English Language Arts MCAS. (The average for the state in the proficient and above categories was 57 percent.)

The third grade MCAS, Traverso said, is the first time that students are asked to write a long composition on a standardized test.

As for the MCAS scores, which are at the height of the reading literacy controversy about whether Massachusetts's students are lagging in those skills, Traverso said that Massachusetts's reading scores are actually the highest in the country. "The scores on the MCAS are not as high, but that is because it is a higher standard."

Indeed, the largest nationwide reading test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, revealed last March that, on average, 33 percent of fourth-graders scored at or above the proficient level in the latest reading results. Massachusetts had the highest reading scores, with 47 percent of fourth-graders at or above proficiency.

But Traverso agrees with the Strategies for Children assessment that "we are not doing as well with the achievement gap between low and higher income students."

"Our biggest challenge is when kids do not come to school with oral language skills and literacy experiences. Those kids are not yet ready to receive reading instruction. They need to know what a book is and what pleasures a book can bring."

Although it is important for parents to do their part at home, using oral communication, exposing their children to books, and using those colorful letter refrigerator magnets, Traverso emphasized that "children spend six hours a day at school. We should be able to reflect on what we are doing and improve our practices to help each individual student become a proficient reader by the end of third grade."