Six months ago, when the New York State Department of Education adjusted the city school district's graduation rate downward to 39 percent, there was a sense of disbelief. Everyone knew Rochester's graduation rate was low, but not that low. There are many explanations why city school students are not graduating on time or at all. Near the top of the list is illiteracy. Education experts say reading is so critical it can be used to predict which students are at risk of dropping out.
But if reading skills are so important, says Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, "Why has the district's number of certified reading teachers shrunk from fifty in 2000 to less than five today?"
The reason, in part, has to do with a fundamental change in how reading is being taught, particularly at the secondary level, says Connie Leech, director of English language arts for the district.
"We are shifting how we teach reading from an older method to a newer method," she says.
For the last 30 years, reading teachers used various packaged instruction programs that followed a "deficit model." The student's weaknesses were identified and instruction was designed to fix the problem areas. Teachers certified in reading taught remedial reading. If there were broader literacy problems, such as problems with writing, certified English teachers provided that instruction.
"The older method," says Leech, "instructs to pass the typical reading tests. But we found that students still had problems applying what they were learning in broader curriculum settings, like history or science. As we learned more about literacy, we knew something was going wrong, especially in the transition years or middle school - 4th, 5th and 6th grades. A good example is, you'll get those students who tested well in reading, but then you look at their written understanding of what they've just read and it's awful. The transition isn't there."
During the elementary years, there is still a lot of decoding of words, says Joanne Larson, UR professor of education. The child learns how to break down letters in a word like "the" and match the letters to the corresponding sounds. But this method of teaching reading doesn't teach the meaning of words and how they are understood in different situations, which ultimately leads to literacy.
"Reading becomes more analytical and the content becomes more important as the child approaches the middle years," Larson says. "That accounts for the ‘4th grade drop off.' Somewhere between 4th and 6th grade, the student can't make the transition to more complicated reading. That's why we are seeing a shift away from the deficit model, which I think is good."
To bridge this gap, Leech says, the district has shifted toward a more literacy-based style of instruction; one that looks at reading in conjunction with writing, speech and hearing. Instead of relying only on reading specialists, instruction comes from all secondary teachers who are coached on how to weave reading development into their English, history or science curriculums.
"Using this method, reading becomes more culturally-relevant, meaningful and interactive," says Leech. And, she says, the district's state English Language Arts Assessment test scores are showing improvement since the change was implemented two years ago.
"If you look at test scores of the Big Five urban districts three years ago, Rochester tested last," she says. "Two years ago, we jumped to third place and last year, we made the biggest gain in the percent of students passing the test. As I've said, I'm not a person who relies on testing, but it is one indication that we are going in the right direction."
The state's ELA exams, Leech says, are also shifting from strictly reading assessment tools to more literacy-based assessment.
"There used to be one test for reading and another test for writing, but even the state recognizes that reading is not an isolated skill," she says.
But Urbanski is skeptical. There are still too many students, he says, in the city school district who require specialized reading instruction. He says that too many of the district's students still have reading problems that aren't being addressed.
"I've listened to the theory and it's a lot of clichés," he says. "The truth is they're eliminating these positions and bringing it into the classroom because they see this as a way to save money. The truth is illiteracy has worsened. We know when students can't read, they can't succeed. They end up filling our jails and prisons because they can't get decent jobs. Years ago, when Rochester had a manufacturing base, it was not as critical. These students could still get jobs. That's not the case today. The district has the same problem with other areas where specialists are required, like social workers and psychologists."
The district has been reducing the number of reading teacher positions since 1990, says Tom Petronio, a spokesperson for the district. But reduction has been through attrition as reading teachers retired, resigned or moved to classroom instruction.
Rochester is not the only school system struggling with how to improve student literacy rates. To get more students to read, faculty and administrators are trying everything from "read-ins" to contests.
"It's a problem for urban districts across the country," says Naomi Erdmann, chair of Nazareth College's graduate literacy program. Erdmann says she is not impressed with the instruction packages she sees or the latest teaching trends in literacy. The research on why some students don't learn how to read or develop literacy skills is quite clear, she says.
"When a child comes from a home where mom is college-educated and talks to her child and reads to her child, that child will develop with a more sophisticated vocabulary," she says. "It is not a race issue. It's a class issue. Poor children are entering urban schools in greater numbers than ever before, and they are starting well behind their middle-class counterparts."