KSD Citizens offers a forum for opinions about programs affecting children in the district. This article submitted by a Kennewick School District teacher is intended to begin a dialogue about the district’s third grade reading goal, its long term consequences for students and related issues.
I would like to begin a critical discussion about the reading program in the Kennewick School District and the three people on the board who are its biggest proponents.
It is my understanding that our school board made a decision over ten years ago now to set a goal to get at least 90% of our district’s 3rd graders to read at grade level.
Because of the extraordinary efforts of our district’s excellent elementary teachers, this goal has now been met or almost met in most of our elementary schools. In fact, if we look over the last 5 or so years, the numbers have looked very impressive . . . so impressive that board member Lynn Fielding, who was the real driver of this idea, has written some books about his achievement.
The first book is entitled The 90% Reading Goal, and a follow-up book is Delivering on the Promise. The whole premise of the first book is that if a student is not reading “at grade level” by the end of 3rd grade, then that child has less chance of graduating from high school. So the book goes on to make the case that every effort must be made between pre-school and 3rd grade to get kids at grade level in reading.
As a teacher in this district, I have had a chance to see over time if our primary reading machine is yielding positive benefits that carry over into a student’s secondary years. Sadly, I have seen, if anything, a net decline in the reading skills of in-coming 9th graders, especially in the area of reading comprehension. So some checking was in order.
I found that reading “at grade level” for Kennewick 3rd graders is defined by Mr. Fielding as something like the 38th percentile. This seems to be a ridiculously low bar, but it might explain why so many Kennewick schools are right at or exceeding the 90% reading goal. So this means that out of 100 students, 62 kids read better than Johnny, yet Johnny is “at grade level” and one student closer to Mr. Fielding’s 90% goal.
The other thing I found was a number of elementary teachers who were unhappy about taking away much of their students’ time in other subjects in order to bolster the kids’ reading scores. Some said their students were receiving up to 3 hours of direct reading instruction per day. This means a net loss of time in other important areas like geography, history, art, music, P.E. And until just recently, because of the new state testing requirements, our elementary students were even short-changed in math and science. Many of our elementary teachers know this is harmful but are powerless to change Mr. Fielding’s policies. His closest ally on the board is Dawn Adams, and she now has the undying support of her niece, the newest member of the board. So it really doesn’t matter what teachers, administrators, or even a superintendent might think, Mr. Fielding’s reading policies are law in the Kennewick School District.
When I discovered this reduction of time in other disciplines in the primary years, I saw an explanation for the decline in reading comprehension in 9th graders who had come up through our system.
Reading is more than decoding and taking DIBEL tests that give students a number value that can eventually become one brick in the 90% goal and impress taxpayers into re-electing certain board members. Reading is a complex process that relies heavily on what the experts call “prior knowledge.” When students are stripped through their elementary years of a balanced serving of subjects, their prior knowledge bank runs at a deficit, and when they get older and read more complex material, their comprehension suffers.
It works like this: A 9th grader has gone through Kennewick’s reading mill in his primary years and missed out on a child’s normal lessons in history, geography, music, art, and science. He enters 9th grade and is given The Call of the Wild to read in his English class. He doesn’t know where the Yukon or Alaska is because he didn’t get geography. He doesn’t know what -60 Fahrenheit really means because he hasn’t spent much time in science or math. Alpha female and “survival of the fittest”–forget it! And in another novel he completely misses a powerful analogy using the four sections of a choir because he didn’t get much music and never had a chance to sing in a choir. Unfortunately our secondary English teachers have to spend too much time catching kids up on knowledge they missed in their primary years so they can comprehend secondary texts.
What makes this knowledge deficit even worse is the Fielding, Adams, and Kintzley “doubling” policy in the middle schools. Students who are behind in reading and math are given 2 reading classes and 2 math classes in middle school. Again, this means depriving these students of other important sources for building the knowledge base they need to comprehend their world and do well in high school and beyond.
And finally I took a look on the OSPI website last spring to see if all the time and resources spent on reading in the primary years was at least still having a positive effect into the child’s 7th grade year. One would think if Mr. Fielding’s premise about reading at grade level by end of 3rd grade is the panacea for our kids, and our district has right at 90% of them up to speed, then there should be very positive numbers for these 3rd graders when they are 7th graders.. The fact is that the Kennewick School District’s 7th grade WASL scores in reading were almost 4% below the state average last year. If you don’t believe it, look it up on the OSPI website.
How can this be? Most of these very same 7th graders went through the primary reading regime. According to Mr. Fielding’s premise, our 7th graders should be at least keeping up with the state average in reading and well on their way to graduation.
Perhaps it’s time to take a more critical look at reading practices in Kennewick. It would be interesting to hear what parents think about the lopsided elementary curriculum and the 38th percentile bar in 3rd grade. It would also be interesting to get opinions on why the 3rd grade “success” is not carrying over into the secondary years.
Mr. Fielding has a lot riding on all of this. He has books to sell based on the blood, sweat, and tears of many Kennewick elementary teachers, and he has conferences to attend around the country where, as a paid consultant, he promotes our/his reading program . . . and his books. In fact, he advertises his consulting business on a website that has used hundreds of thousands of our taxpayer dollars to fund. Is it possible he has so much riding on all this that he has lost his objectivity regarding what is truly best for our children? Comments are welcomed.
The writer raises numerous important issues and I wonder when the school board will be open to considering alternatives to the doubles classes. It is possible to offer a broad curriculum rich with exploratory and elective classes and reinforce students’ reading, math and science skills. Is lost objectivity among proponents of the reading program problematic to change?
The writer’s comments about Kennewick kids and their reading ring true with me. As a high school teacher, I often saw students who appeared to have not read much at all since being “checked off” in third grade. They could read, all right, but did they LIKE to read? The intense instruction bored all of them who could read well, and the “doubles” made certain that those who hated/feared reading would have these feelings deepened as they passed on to higher grades.
As a paraeducator, about 11 years for the KSD, I will have to admit that when I first heard about the 90% reading goal, I was excited. I understood that to mean that at least 90% of 100% of Kennewick students would be reading at grade level thus making their target of reading at the 90% by 3rd grade. However as I began to understand what that meant I was appalled. As the article reads the formula that was applied to get the results is deceptive.
It was that realization that catapulted me to begin attending school board meetings. As I attended and began to hear and understand the history of the 90% reading goal, I felt I could no longer sit by and see our children being used as a test case for someone’s financial gain or personal notoriety. It was also that realization that prompted me to run for school board. You see our children only go through elementary school once and we must make sure that their education is well rounded. KSD families are being sold a bill of goods. Parents of Kennewick it is time to get involved and informed. If we don’t our kids will pay the price and eventually so will our community.
For a continuation of this issue read the comments attached to the School Board Report of September 29.
I was very excited to hear that a district was getting almost all elementary kids on grade level reading but I see your post.
I, as a WA resident (taxpayer working through January to pay taxes that only funds education), am very concerned at the statewide 70% graduation rate. It makes sense that if kids are reading young, then they are more likely to be able to handle the higher grade courses. If the 90% Reading Goal is not an (honest and thorough) answer, then do you and fellow teachers have recommendations on how to reduce the dropout rate? What are the obstacles to achieving a high graduation rate?
I am absolutely not challenging the idea of reading at a young age. What I am challenging is the quality of the reading that is being done and the long-term negative effects when it is not done well. I too pay taxes and am concerned about the dropout and graduation rates. Most of the high school kids I have now have been through this elementary reading program in Kennewick, and I have to say that the quality of their reading skills is now lower than it was 10 years ago before the 90% Reading Goal became a district practice. Not only are the skills lower, but the interest in reading has dropped as well.
My answer to your question is that we return to educating the whole child from K through 12. For years it worked extremely well if there was a good teacher in the classroom. And this is becoming less and less likely in the current context of No Child Left Behind. For example, in order to raise test scores in our middle schools and stay out of NCLB hotwater, administrators have adopted the practice of giving students with low reading and math scores two periods of both reading and math. To make room for this extra hour for up to 100 kids, they have to take away some of their art, vocational ed, PE, science, and music. The result of this is that we now have some art, vocational ed, PE, science, and music teachers who only have half a day of classes to teach. So what is the administrative answer to this? To make these elective teachers “highly qualified” in reading and/or math so that they can bring their instant expertise and passion to the study of reading and math. It is stunningly ridiculous. Some of my current 9th graders spent two years of middle school with an ex PE teacher two hours a day not getting any better at reading and then another two hours with an ex-music teacher not getting any better at math.
It all looks good to the taxpayers on the outside looking in. And it especially looks good to someone who trusts statistics and numbers. “Hey, these kids are getting double the reading and math each day. That has got to be a good thing!” Well it’s not; it is absurd. In fact, if anything, I would argue that this so-called “doubling” is adding to the high dropout rates. What happens in these classes is that because all the students are low achieving, they begin to negatively feed off of one another. They gradually develop a more intensified culture of failure and mediocrity, for there is no one but the teacher to model any positive behaviors.
This is what our tax money is supporting.