Pass or Fail: Too Much Focus Placed on Early Literacy?
In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.
While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?
What fundamental skill do you think is the most important for students in elementary grades to master? If you said reading, the state of Colorado agrees with you. Below is how Colorado is leading the pack by placing primary focus on literacy skills.
Generally speaking, state-level emphasis on reading is one of the most prevalent trends for retention. Although retention is not the only (or even the main instrument) for addressing problems concerning the achievement of expected knowledge levels or skills at particular education phases. Other so-called “intensive interventions” include pulling struggling readers out of class for individual or small-group tutorials. Yet, retention for reading deficiency has become increasingly popular.
So far, thirteen states have adopted retention policies for kindergarten to third grade where there are significant concerns regarding literacy. Colorado is one of the key states shifting emphasis to early literacy, and it is looking to incorporate retention as a mainstream policy where there are literacy concerns by third grade. The passage of the Colorado READ Act marked the state’s official transformation to early literacy emphasis. Many Colorado educators hailed the bill as one of the most significant pieces of education legislation to pass in 2012.
Provisions of the Colorado state legislation are complex, however. It is, at the end of the day, a comprehensive effort to apply reading standards to education and implement retention as one strategy for addressing reading concerns. The Colorado READ Act calls for districts to report to the Colorado Department of Education on the number of students demonstrating problems with reading in kindergarten to third grade. The State Board of Education defines the criteria for significant reading deficiencies for the purpose of law. The state’s education department must also create and maintain a list of approved instructional and professional development programs that districts can use to address literacy problems as early as possible. Educators must develop individual READ plans for students with significant deficiencies, which allow parents, teachers, and administrators to have a say in grade promotion versus retention.
With the literacy focus, assessments shifted and teachers became more involved and interested in evaluations and their outcomes. Evaluations were tied more closely to what was happening in the classroom, and what teachers saw among students. It may be more time consuming, but also can be more effective. Perhaps the key aspect of the change was a dramatic altering of perspective. “We’ve shifted from focusing on ‘what students can’t do’ to what we need to do,” explains Dr. Montina Romero, Director of Exceptional Student Services for the Fountain-Fort Carson School District. “Now, we’re much better at improving all students’ progress because we look at our whole system and what all children should learn.”
Although the current legislation offers parents the final say on retention for children in kindergarten to second grade, by third grade and beyond that, the law shifts the control to superintendents or designated administrators. Special services are available, on paper, for any retained third grader, and diverted interest revenue from the state schools is set to provide approximately $16 million in per-pupil funding (about $700 per student) for districts working with significant reading deficiencies. The law also creates $5 million in funding for CDE administration costs (about $1 million) and professional development grants to districts. How efficiently and effectively the state uses these resources is a different matter.
Inevitably, there are various protections and exemptions for students with disabilities, limited English proficiency, and those who have already been retained. Specific interventions in Colorado, before retention, include enrollment in full-day kindergarten, enrollment in summer school, and access to tutoring.
Although this Colorado legislation is groundbreaking in many respects, we shouldn’t get carried away by thinking it is the only state legislation focused on literacy and retention. As of 2012, in fact, the District of Columbia and fourteen other states can retain students based on lack of reading proficiency alone, suggesting that states are making grade-specific learning expectations and their subsequent interventions even more core to education.
How important do you feel early literacy intervention is for mastery? Does Colorado have the right idea or do you feel a more conservative approach should be taken in regards to retention?
The issues around retention and social promotion would largely disappear if only schools implemented the sort of early literacy programs that research shows solves the problem of underachievement in reading. We now have multiple studies demonstrating that virtually every child enters kindergarten could be reading at the 2nd grade level at the end of first grade. Thus, there is no reason for any school to retain struggling readers in K or 1. That same research also shows that if we follow those at-risk kids into 6th grade only about 15% of the kids have reading proficiences indicating that they have become struggling readers. The few kids who are struggling in 6th grade had some teachers in grades 2 through 6 that were not effective at developing reading proficiency.
The research teams have used early intervention, beginning in kindergarten, to address the needs of at-risk children and follow that with intensive interventions in 1st grade for kids who still lag behind after receiving kindergarten interventions. As the authors of these reports note, in virtually all schools there is no expert early intervention available in kindergarten or 1st grade. What is available is inexpert instruction from paraprofessionals and volunteers, if anything.
Perhaps the best news is that the authors of one of the original studies showing that expert early intervention resulted in everyone acquiring reading proficiencies (Scanlon and Vellutino) now report that a 60 hour professional development program for all K and 1st grade teachers produces just as many reading proficient kids as did the early tutorial interventions they reported on earlier.
Congress has noted these studies and those studies are what led Congress to pass the RTI legislation with the background paper for the legislation predicting a 75 to 80% decrease in referrals to special education. However, most school districts have not implemented an RTI program based upon the research findings available. Thus, few schools currently achieve universal literacy. But it is the failure of schools to use the research available to guide their RTI program planning that lies at the base of the problem.
The best news is that kids learn when they are taught. At some point one can hope schools will catch with the research and begin to develop the literacy capacities of all children instead of flunking or socially promoting or labeling them LD or dyslexic. It is the schools currently that are the problem. We can continue to do what has always been done resulting in a third of American students reading below their grade level placement.