“Dozens of cities and states across America are overhauling the way their schools teach reading — attempting to close gaps exacerbated by the pandemic”: Axios surveys states’ approaches to reading.
On striking detail: Mississippi, next to last in fourth-grade reading proficiency in 2013, rose to twenty-first in 2022: “State legislators and educators tried a number of strategies, including screening kids for literacy, hiring literacy coaches for teachers, and emphasizing phonics.” Hmm, phonics.
Here in Illinois, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that in spring 2023, nearly 35% of third through eleventh graders were reading at grade level. “This is a great sign for the state of Illinois that we are really back on track,” the state's superintendent of education said. He wasn’t joking: in 2021 and 2022, 30% of students were reading at grade level. Maybe it’s time for phonics.
In Berkeley, California, where only 26% of Black students are proficient in reading, schools are still using Lucy Calkins’s Units of Study (EdSource ).
Thanks, Joe, for pointing me to the Axios article.
Related reading
All OCA posts about teaching reading (Pinboard)
Monday, January 29, 2024
The states of reading
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments: 3
You're welcome for the Axios article.
Interesting that in the Chicago Sun Times story, the focus seems to be on the decline caused by the pandemic, yet "Graduation rates did not suffer during the pandemic." Such a measure makes me suspect of the increase in graduation rates.
Graduation rates seem to always be worth wondering about. They’re often worked out with creative accounting:
https://mleddy.blogspot.com/2009/02/counting-dropouts.html
Even more reason to be suspect of claimed graduation rates.
Post a Comment