Michigan Educators Put Reading First

Michigan’s Reading First program was one of the first to be launched in the nation. The federal government awarded funds in 2002 through a competitive grant process as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). In turn, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) released a portion of these funds to qualifying Michigan school districts through a second competitive grant process.

Faith Stevens, MDE’s Reading First Coordinator, oversees the work of Reading First in Michigan. As the program completes its first full year of funding, Stevens reflects on the progress and effectiveness of this first year.

LC: Why is there so much emphasis—and so many dollars spent—on literacy?

FS: Students who fail to learn to read and write well face tremendous, long-term consequences. Low literacy achievement erodes self-confidence and crushes motivation to learn. More importantly, reading failure keeps students from learning and performing during later years in school.

LC: What are you most excited about at the end of this first year of Reading First?

FS: The Reading First participants have several successful sites, and we can be proud of the collective efforts of all staff and professional development pro-viders. We’ve set an ambitious standard—ALL students, with the exception of students with severe cognitive delays, will read at grade level by the end of third grade. While controversy swirls around the No Child Left Behind law and its demands on states and schools, 119 buildings in Michigan have been diligently implementing Reading First—with some good results. We’re sincere in taking on the myriad challenges facing high priority districts with high poverty and making a difference for these students.

LC: Reading First seems complicated to describe. What, in a nutshell, is Reading First trying to accomplish?

FS: The primary goals of Reading First are ongoing professional development for classroom teachers in the essential components of reading instruction, helping teachers use assessment to inform instruction, and teaching all students to read well by third grade.

LC: Those sound like goals we’ve heard before. How does Reading First differ from Michigan’s earlier literacy efforts?

FS: Reading First is different in three ways. First, it focuses much more on equipping classroom teachers to use student assessment to design high-quality, individualized instruction. We’ve tried that before, but never to this extent. Classroom teachers—not a master-level reading expert—are learning to identify what a student needs and design appropriate interventions that take place right in the classroom. Second, Reading First schools are conscientiously monitoring the success of students who are at risk of failure, looking at their test scores at least three times a year to make sure students are making progress. Finally, Reading First uses a coaching model of ongoing professional development. Each school team has its own literacy coach who works only in that building.

LC: How does Reading First build on previous work?

FS: Reading First is deepening what we began with the Michigan Literacy Progress Profile (MLPP). Contrary to rumors, the MLPP is very much alive and well! MLPP is still a valuable assessment to inform instruction (see page 11). However, it was never meant to have all 11 assessments used to assess every student in a classroom, and it didn’t necessarily tell teachers what to do to help a particular student. Reading First facilitators are working jointly with the master trainers from each Regional Literacy Training Center (RLTC) to help teachers use additional tools like the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). Together, these tools help a teacher identify which students need intervention, discover what skills they need, and design appropriate instruction to move them forward.

LC: Has the new emphasis on Reading First impacted any existing work?

FS: There are people who would say that Reading Recovery took a hit. I think the two programs can co-exist nicely. Students who need extra help can still be pulled out of their regular classrooms for additional support; but with Reading First, every student gets 90 minutes of literacy instruction and ALL classroom teachers know how to help their students.

LC: Some critics have said that “Scienti-fically-Based Reading Research” (SBRR) is code for “phonics.” Are they right?

FS: If teachers are using assessment to inform instruction, only the students who need phonics instruction will get it. The way the NCLB legislation reads, it requires us to make sure teachers have phonics as a tool and know when to use it.

LC: One of the objectives of Reading First is to involve special education providers in the effort to improve reading skills. How is this happening in Michigan?

FS: One of the mandates of NCLB and Reading First is that ALL students will achieve and learn to read with the exception of students with severe cognitive delays. The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) scores of students with disabilities are included in the numbers schools use to determine eligibility for Reading First grants (see Reading First Fact File, page 8). The individualized education program (IEP) indicates if a student with a disability will take the MEAP or MEAP with accommodations. If the IEP indicates that a student will be included in standardized assessment, the student must also be included in literacy assessments for instruction. In Reading First buildings, special education teachers are involved in all professional development and training. We also invite upper elementary and secondary special education teachers, since they often address early literacy skills at those levels.

LC: Earlier you mentioned Regional Literacy Training Centers (RLTC). Are they still playing a role in Michigan?

FS: The RLTCs still play a major role in helping the MDE deliver professional development to teachers. RLTC master trainers are working together with Reading First facilitators to correlate the strategies found in LETRS with assessment results from MLPP. By next summer or early fall, they will offer updates to the MLPP trainers. And we’re also very excited about the launch of the passport for Michigan’s Literacy in 3D (using Data-driven, Decision-making to Differentiate instruction), which will include all the elements of our assessment system (see page 11). Of course, budget cuts have forced the RLTCs to be creative. They are doing more with technology and charging fees to teachers who participate in training.

LC: Does Reading First address the needs of college and university students who are just learning to teach?

FS: Yes! The Reading First teams are working with an advisory panel of university educators. We’re designing a mechanism for content review of all literacy courses offered at our colleges and universities that train teacher candidates. This course content review is another requirement of NCLB. Together, we’ll prepare a report on the course content review before the conclusion of the Reading First grant. The goal is to prepare teacher candidates who are also informed about the essential components of reading instruction. The review format and instructions will be sent out to colleges and universities soon.

LC: Has there been any down side to Reading First?

LC: Where are we now? What have we learned?

FS: We are currently in our second year of implementation. We have hosted visits to three funded sites by federal Reading First program monitors, who observed the 90-minute literacy block of instruction. They also interviewed teachers, literacy coaches, principals, facilitators, assistant superintendents, and me. These monitors sincerely want to know what works in teaching children to read.

LC: Are you learning anything schools can put into practice right away?

FS: We’ve made discoveries about two important predictors of reading success. First, we have confirmed what we understood with the MLPP about the importance of phonemic awareness. If students don’t learn how to focus on and manipulate the smallest units of sound in spoken language, they will not be able to understand the relationships of sounds they hear and the letters and words on a page. Second, we’ve learned that oral reading fluency affects reading comprehension. Without that fluency (automaticity), students will not understand or remember what they read.

LC: How will you know if Reading First is a success?

FS: Our Reading First plan had to include an evaluation strategy, right from the start. Since Michigan was the first state to fund buildings in Reading First, we had the honor of being the first state to be visited by the federal monitors. In addition, we are conducting an extensive evaluation with a CIERA group at the University of Michigan as part of the national research on what works in teaching children to read. Districts in our first round of funding have participated in annual evaluations of effective implementation along with student achievement outcomes.

LC: What’s next?

FS: We have finished the first annual performance report due to the federal government. We will share this with educators and families in Michigan. One section of the report inquires about exemplary sites. We have compiled features of our most successful Reading First buildings and districts that are keys to success in leading students to achievement and to long-lasting systemic change. To read the full report, Study of Reading First in Michigan Technical Report #1, go to www.mireadingfirst.org.

LC: Bertrand Russell once said, “In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” It seems to me that you’re asking schools to do this—to change their understanding and the way they do business in order to get better results.

FS: We have huge goals that require new ways of teaching and organizing time. Understandably, we find varying levels of commitment to the change process. I share with my Reading First teams a story that Michael Jordan’s mother told. It seems that Michael Jordan failed to make his tenth-grade high school basketball team. When his mother heard what had happened, she said to him, “Son, it’s not the size of the person in the game; it’s the size of the game in the person.” This message clicked for him, and he began getting up every morning at 4:30 a.m. to practice—every day, every week, every month.

We all know the outcome of Michael Jordan’s motivation and hard work. So I ask educators, “What’s the size of your game?” Can you bring that same kind of passionate commitment to your work with students? Michigan’s students need teachers and administrators who are committed to the goal that ALL students will read well by the end of third grade.

For more information, contact: Faith Stevens, Michigan Department of Education, Office of School Improvement, P.O. Box 30008, Lansing, MI 48909, (517) 241-2479, StevensF@michigan.gov.

To learn more about Michigan’s Reading First program, visit www.mireadingfirst.org. To learn more about the national Reading First program, visit www.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/index.html.

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