September 2007
Start the School Year Reading
Seattle’s youngest elementary school students will walk into their classrooms this September to find tubs of new books, and teachers urging them to choose what they want to read. The district’s Book Selection Committee has created a library of 580 books for every kindergarten, first grade and second grade classroom in the district, according to Dan Coles, Seattle Public Schools’ K-12 literacy manager. High-needs schools will get an additional 80 books per classroom.
Books were carefully selected for reading level and to represent multiple cultures, give a global perspective, and be interesting and informative to students.
In mid-September, a second literacy initiative, “Read a Million Words, Seattle,” will be launched in Seattle K-12 classrooms. Modeled on a campaign initiated in the Denver Public Schools in 1992, this program will create excitement about reading and incentives to read every day. The “Read a Million Words, Seattle” campaign will include reading/author events, rewards for students achieving reading milestones, and materials to promote the program throughout the community.
WHY READING?
Seattle was ranked number one in the America’s Most Literate Cities ratings for 2005 and 2006. These school initiatives suggest that literacy is an ongoing effort, not a goal to reach and then stop. Denver’s “Read a Million Words” program is based on several research studies indicating that reading volume (amount) and frequency (how often) predict reading success and overall academic achievement.
Here are figures for out-of-school reading and academic achievement from a 1988 study by R. Anderson, P. Wilson and L. Fielding:
• Students reading 40 minutes a day averaged academic achievement in the 90th percentile.
• Students reading 12 minutes a day were in the 50th percentile.
• Students reading two minutes a day were down at the 10th percentile.
Their conclusions? Children become better readers by reading, and reading helps children learn in school.
The Seattle K-2 Classroom Libraries Project has a strong research base, according to numerous studies compiled by the district under the title, “The Benefits of Classroom Libraries.” Research claims include:
1) When classrooms provide access to a rich literacy environment, they can compensate for less-than-ideal home environments.
2) Students in classrooms with classroom libraries read 50 percent more books than students in classrooms without them.
3) Students who have access to classroom collections and a centralized school library media center read more than students who have access to only a centralized school library media center or a classroom collection.
4) Students exposed to real texts – books and stories – rather than short passages in basal readers perform better in reading comprehension.
TEACHING CHOICE
A key aspect of the K-2 Classroom Libraries Project is emphasis on students’ selecting the books they read. The books in these libraries call out, “Read me!” with their bold illustrations and topics relevant to today’s young children.
Coles reports that 60 percent of the books are nonfiction, many of them social studies and science-oriented. These are not children’s classics, not decodable texts, and not books with popular culture appeal (although all of these have their place in the classroom and the home). Collections represent the diversity of Seattle’s population, and the books have real, solid content to expand the reader’s world.
Teachers are getting specific training on ways to use the library as an instructional tool. They will teach students to evaluate whether a chosen book is too difficult to read, too easy or “just right,” considering such factors as their ability to read the words accurately, to understand the ideas in the book and to maintain interest in what they read. The process includes learning how to get help in reading, when to abandon a book and what to look for in a more appropriate selection.
The text follows the pictures in most of these books; some have no text, only pictures, so the student creates the words of the story. Context cues are maximized, so the student with weak decoding skills has the best possible chance of getting the gist of the story. The books are designed to give the reader an experience of success and enjoyment.
Students will keep logs or journals about their reading, and teachers confer individually and privately with students about their reading habits, strategies and needs.
Classroom library books will also be used for read-alouds and literature studies and to support the writing process. Librarians will help students to use the central library to pursue interests sparked by their independent reading selections.
WORD MILLIONAIRES
To read a million words in a year, a first-grader will need to read four picture books a day and a fifth-grader 25 chapter books a year. All types of reading count for “Read a Million Words” challenges, including newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites and digital text. Details are still being developed for the Seattle campaign.
The Denver program has certainly caught on. In September 2002, the Rocky Mountain News asked, “Where did Denver students’ noses go? The ‘Read a Million Words’ project means they’re likely buried in books.” Similar “Read a Million Words” campaigns are now underway in Bristol and Wales in the U.K.
In Bristol, 250 children have become word millionaires so far this year. Students (or, for young children, their parents), use an “online passport” to record the number of words they’ve read. The “Read a Million Words” Web site includes a reading list with word counts of well-known and available books. There is a “wordometer” for calculating words per line and lines per page.
“Read a Million Words, Wales” was introduced
countrywide in Wales in February 2007. Organized through primary schools,
the campaign urges students to “read a million words by Christmas.”
In addition to reading books, children are encouraged to count words in
comics, newspapers and road signs and even on cereal boxes! Welsh words
and English words both count, addressing the special issues of bilingual
reading.
Expect to see the Seattle version of these and other campaigns featured
this fall for “Read a Million Words, Seattle”
LITERACY EFFORTS AROUND PUGET SOUND
School literacy programs are not new to the Puget Sound area. Many other districts have introduced new literacy initiatives in the past five years and are now implementing them.
KENT SCHOOL DISTRICT launched its Literacy Workshop Program in 2002. This K-6 model emphasizes teaching thinking skills to help students take meaning from their reading. Literacy coaches train teachers to use literacy workstations -– areas within the classroom where students can explore and expand literacy. The program includes bookrooms and library collections similar to the classroom libraries being introduced in Seattle.
BELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT put classroom libraries into their elementary schools several years ago, as part of their Balanced Literacy Program. Their current thrust is in bilingual literacy, to respond to an increasing Spanish-speaking population in the district.
EDMONDS SCHOOL DISTRICT, in south Snohomish County, is focusing on math this year after several years of implementation of their 2002 focus on literacy. This literacy effort has included setting up demonstration classrooms, extensive staff development with literacy coaches and putting books organized by specific reading levels in classroom libraries.
In Pierce County, an important literacy program in the TACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT is Werlin Reading, an 18-year-old, Tacoma-based program to provide tutors and mentors to first- to third-grade struggling readers. Last year they had 500 volunteer tutors in Tacoma elementary schools teaching children to read. Werlin quotes the statistic from the National Research Council that “only one child in nine will learn how to read if they haven’t done so by the end of the third grade.”
TAKE IT HOME
Efforts to increase children’s reading at home are part of most literacy programs. Page Ahead (first called Books for Kids) started in 1990 as a project to give books to at-risk children in the Puget Sound area. They now have sites state-wide, and their programs include putting volunteers in schools to read to kids, book drives at schools and businesses and Family Involvement workshops. Last year, they gave 150,000 books to participating children (three per child), along with ideas for parents on using books at home.
“Read a Million Words, Seattle” plans to work with existing literacy programs such as Page Ahead, reaching out to all of Seattle’s children. Cathy McLeod, supervisor of Seattle Public Schools Library Media Services and coordinator of the project, emphasizes home involvement. Students will need to read at home and in before-and after-school care programs, as well as at school, if they are to meet the one million word goal.
Jean Gant is a longtime Seattle resident and educator, currently working as an autism specialist in the Edmonds School District. She has two adult children who attended Seattle Public School kindergarten through 12th grade.
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