High-Poverty Schools That Beat the Odds

Readers g n i l g g u Str High-poverty schools that beat the odds Patricia M. Cunningham Poverty is the largest correlate of reading achievement. If you know how many children in a U.S. school qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, you can make a fairly accurate guess about their test scores. Schools with large numbers of poor children seldom achieve their goals for end-of-grade literacy tests. This past year, however, I visited six schools that had “beaten the odds.” All six had high levels of poverty and large numbers of children who passed their states’ tests. Through classroom observation, interviews, and an important-factors survey, I attempted to answer this question: What were these schools doing that allowed them to beat the odds? The six schools were located in five different states in the midwest, northeast, and southeast United States. Five were located in medium-sized cities; the sixth, non-urban, school was on an army base. The percentage of children in these schools who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch ranged from 68% to 98%. Students in two of the schools were predominately Hispanic, and most of these students were English-language learners. One school was almost exclusively African American. Two of the schools had mixed populations with approximately half Caucasian and half African American students. Of the students in the armybase school, 70% were Caucasian. The tests taken by the students varied according to the states in which they were located. One state tested only third graders. Two states tested only fourth graders. The remaining states tested third- and fourth-grade students. Scores on the 2005 state literacy tests indicated that between 68% and 87% of students met or exceeded the state’s standards for proficiency. All six schools scored 382 better on their literacy tests than other schools in their districts, which had lower levels of poverty. The reason I chose these schools—and, indeed, the reason I knew about them—was that all six used the Four Blocks framework for balanced literacy (Cunningham, Hall, & Sigmon, 1999). Four Blocks began in the 1989 school year in one firstgrade classroom. Since then, it has expanded to include a Building Blocks framework in kindergarten and a Big Blocks framework in upper grades. At all grade levels, instructional time and emphasis are divided among • a words block that includes sight words, fluency, phonics, and spelling; • a guided reading block that focuses on comprehension strategies for story and informational text, building prior knowledge, and vocabulary; • a writing block that includes process writing and focused writing; and • a self-selected reading block that includes teacher read-aloud and independent reading. The Four Blocks framework is currently used by hundreds of schools in the United States and in several other countries. Beating the odds The schools I visited had three things in common: They had large numbers of poor children, they had done better than expected on their states’ literacy tests, and they all used the Four Blocks © 2006 International Reading Association (pp. 382–385) doi:10.1598/RT.60.4.9 framework. What were they doing that allowed them to achieve their success? Before visiting, I identified 12 factors that appear to be important for high literacy achievement. I defined them and then set out to determine how they functioned in each school and how important the teachers and administrators believed them to be. Here are a few of my observations about these 12 factors. Assessment. Assessment that guides instruction is widely recognized to be an important factor in achievement. In every school, teachers and administrators didn’t just give assessments but had a system in place to make sure assessment was used to guide instruction. One school had a schoolwide assessment wall. Every child was represented by a sticky note placed on the wall according to reading level. When children moved to a higher reading level, their sticky note was moved. Everyone could see at a glance how each child was reading and which children were moving forward. Two of the schools used writing prompts to determine how children were growing in writing, phonics, and spelling skills. The administrators at these two schools met with gradelevel teams to score the writing samples and—more important—to plan instruction based on what the samples showed about individual and class needs and growth. In another school, benchmark tests were given. The principal hired substitutes to rotate to classrooms so that the administrator and each teacher could look at test results together and decide on class and individual instructional needs. All six schools conducted regular assessments and made sure they were used to guide instruction. Community involvement. All schools had a variety of activities and partnerships that involved the community. Community members were present in the schools on the days I visited; they functioned as guest readers, volunteer tutors, and teacher assistants. The schools all had at least one business partner who helped provide materials and other support not available through the school’s budget. Comprehensive curriculum. A comprehensive curriculum included not only literacy but also science and social studies. Schools that just “teach the basics” in the primary grades and ignore science and social studies may get an initial bump up in primary litera- cy scores, but “the chickens come home to roost” when testing occurs in the intermediate grades. Literacy requires word identification and comprehension. Meaning vocabulary is a huge part of comprehension. Most of the new words children need to learn meanings for reside in the subjects of science and social studies. All schools were trying to include both, but all admitted they were not doing as much as they needed to do. Most teachers were including informational text related to science and social studies as part of their guided reading and teacher readaloud. They also increased the amount of informational text in their classrooms and school libraries so that children could choose informational books and magazines during self-selected reading time. In one school, children who needed it got 45 minutes each day of instruction in English as a second language. This instruction was always centered on the grade-level science or social studies curriculum. Engagement. Several years ago, Pressley and his colleagues published the results of their effectiveteacher research in which they identified characteristics of highly effective teachers (Pressley, Allington, Wharton-McDonald, Block, & Morrow, 2001). Among other factors, they identified high levels of student engagement during literacy activities in all classrooms. Their observations showed that 90% of the students were engaged in their reading and writing 90% of the time. In every classroom I visited, I observed extremely high levels of student engagement with literacy activities. Instruction. The Four Blocks framework is heavy on instruction. Each day, teachers lead students through a variety of activities during the workingwith-words block to teach them how to decode and spell and to transfer these skills to reading and writing. The guided reading block always includes a before- and after-reading activity in which teachers model and demonstrate comprehension strategies. While children read during guided reading, teachers coach and monitor individuals. Teachers teach a minilesson at the beginning of the writing block each day. While the children write, teachers do one-to-one instruction through individual writing conferences. One-to-one instruction is also included as teachers have daily conferences with children during self-selected reading. Struggling Readers 383 In all six schools, children were getting large amounts of instruction in a variety of formats. Leadership. There are some successful classrooms in schools that lack leadership, but there are no successful schools for hard-to-teach children that lack strong leadership. All six of these schools had passionate, committed, “hands-on” principals who expected much from their teachers and students and gave them daily support and encouragement. Materials. All schools had a wide variety of materials. Basal readers, leveled readers, fiction and nonfiction trade books, magazines, and newspapers were all being used. In all schools, teachers chose materials that best suited their students and the purpose for their reading instruction. Parent participation. All schools actively encouraged parent participation. Parents were invited to attend monthly sessions in which they learned how to help with homework. One school opened the computer labs one evening a week to students who were accompanied by their parents. The two schools with large numbers of English-language learners held English classes for parents. Most of the teachers and administrators wished they could get more parents to participate in literacy activities with their children. Perseverance and persistence. In order to get results with anything, you have to stick with it long enough to “reap what you sow.” All schools had committed to the Four Blocks framework and had been implementing it for at least four years. Professional development. All six schools had ongoing professional development. In addition to workshops, demonstration lessons were taught in classrooms, teachers were coached as they did instruction, and teachers met in grade-level teams to support one another and plan for implementation. Several of the schools had teacher-run book study groups and considered themselves a professional learning community. Real reading and writing. To become good readers and writers, students must spend a lot of time actually reading and writing. In Four Blocks classrooms, children read every day during guided reading. They 384 The Reading Teacher Vol. 60, No. 4 also read something of their own choosing during self-selected reading. Children write every day during the writing block. In addition, most of the six schools had after-school programs in which most students participated and during which they did additional reading and writing. Specialist support. All schools tried to maximize the effectiveness of their special teachers and were creative in making sure that instruction provided by specialists was indeed “extra” rather than “instead of.” In one school, the special teachers worked staggered hours, beginning their day an hour early or leaving an hour late. Almost all pullout instruction occurred before or after school. During the school day, these special teachers teamed with classroom teachers to provide inclassroom support for children. In two of the schools all children got an additional 30 minutes of reading instruction each day in small groups taught by teams comprising classroom teachers, special teachers, and assistants. The top four factors After my visit to each school, I asked the professional staff to do a very hard task. I gave them a list of the 12 important factors and asked them to rank these 1–4 in terms of how important they were to the literacy success their students had attained. They were to rank the three factors they considered most important as 1, the three next most important as 2, the next three as 3, and the remainder as 4. This was a very difficult task because none of the factors is unimportant, but I was trying to figure out which ones these teachers saw as most important. When I tallied up all the rankings, I found that instruction, reading and writing, perseverance and persistence, and engagement were ranked more highly than the others. After these four factors, teachers decided that leadership, professional development, and assessment were the next most important. Specialist support, materials, comprehensive curriculum, parent participation, and community involvement, although important, were ranked as less important. Schools serving large numbers of poor children have to do it all if their students are going to obtain high levels of literacy. None of the factors is unimportant, but schools cannot improve all of December 2006/January 2007 them simultaneously. Based on the responses of the teachers and administrators in these six schools that beat the odds, the primary focus should be on four factors: instruction, real reading and writing, student engagement, and perseverance in implementing a strong instructional framework, such as Four Blocks. By making these elements a priority, high-poverty schools will be well on the road to literacy for all. Cunningham is editor of the Struggling Readers department and teaches at Wake Forest University. References Cunningham, P.M., Hall, D.P., & Sigmon, C.M. (1999). The teacher’s guide to the Four Blocks. Greensboro, NC: Carson Dellosa. Pressley, M., Allington, R.L., Wharton-McDonald, R., Block, C.C., & Morrow, L. (2001). Learning to read: Lessons from exemplary first-grade classrooms. New York: Guilford. The department editor welcomes reader comments. E-mail [email protected] or write to Pat Cunningham, 811 Leigh Dr., Gibsonville, NC 27249, USA. Struggling Readers 385