Arkansas' ongoing effort to transform the teaching of reading to better align with research and to improve student achievement has hit some milestones, state Division of Elementary and Secondary Education leaders say.
Those developments include:
• Production of the 14th and final video course for middle and high school teachers who are required by state law to demonstrate awareness of the science behind reading.
• Approval of state rules that in part describe how elementary and special education teachers can demonstrate proficiency, which they are required to show by the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.
• The forthcoming distribution of $9 million from a multiyear $38 million federal grant to be used by applicant school systems to purchase materials and otherwise support reading instruction.
The milestones come in the state's third year of R.I.S.E Arkansas -- the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence.
The multifaceted initiative provides teachers with different levels of training in reading science and strategies. The particular kind of training depends on whether the educator teaches elementary school grades and/or special education and needs to be proficient in the science and instruction, or teaches middle and high school and needs to be aware of strategies available to spot and help struggling readers.
Stacy Smith, Arkansas' assistant education commissioner for learning services and one of the program's architects, recently called R.I.S.E. "the most powerful and successful" of the initiatives undertaken by the state education agency, and one that has drawn national attention.
"I jokingly say 'Arkansas is on the R.I.S.E.' all the time," Smith said.
"We really are on the rise in literacy," she continued. "I'm confident we are going to see this reflected in our [student] test scores in comparison with other states, but it takes time. We are in our third year of consistently going down the same path. We hear anecdotally all the time from teachers who say, 'Wow, this has opened my eyes' or 'I've been in the classroom for 20 years -- why didn't I know this?'"
The state education division, in partnership with Arkansas PBS, has completed the development and made available to middle and high school teachers all 14 courses that comprise the training for the awareness requirement. The 14th and final course became available May 1 and was greeted enthusiastically by the 139 people who took it in the first 12 hours it was available, division spokeswoman Kimberly Mundell said.
The awareness courses -- one to 1½ hours each and featuring some of the nation's experts in reading science and instruction -- are made available through Arkansas IDEAS. Arkansas IDEAS is a continuing-education service provided by Arkansas PBS for Arkansas educators.
"It's a huge accomplishment, I think, to get that out," Mundell said about the 14th course offering. "It's not just 'we got the course out' but now the whole pathway is complete," she said adding that the covid-19 global pandemic that closed schools in mid-March accelerated the offering of the last course.
Greg Murry, superintendent of the Conway School District, said last week that he is a fan of R.I.S.E. Arkansas, having recently completed the watching of all 14 of the videos for the awareness pathway.
"I thought the videos were well produced and I thought that the people they brought in were excellent trainers and excellent teachers about the various parts of reading," he said. "I enjoyed it. I learned a whole lot, actually. And even though I will never teach a kid to read, it is important for me to understand conceptually what we are asking our teachers to do."
Murry, 62, who keeps a 1960s Dick and Jane reading primer in his office bookcase, said the Conway system has already seen significant academic growth in students whose "teachers have been at it a couple of years and have been doing the work of R.I.S.E."
Pam Jones, a 32-year teacher currently teaching business technology at Crossett Middle School, took the 14 awareness courses over the course of two school years. She said in an email that she was pleased that the courses didn't focus just on literacy and reading courses but provided "lots of good examples ... that I can use in my business classes on a daily basis."
Those included suggested prompts to be used to get her students to think and enable her to see what their prior knowledge might be on the lessons of the day.
"A question prompt ... that I liked was: 'Describe why social skills are important in the workplace,'" Jones said. "In this example, the students will demonstrate through writing their knowledge and understanding of what social skills are in the workplace."
Heather Eggers, a nationally certified English teacher at Westside High School in Jonesboro's Westside School District, said she was not thrilled at first about having to focus on the science of reading to fulfill her professional development hours for the 2019-20 school year. The 15-year teacher questioned the relevancy until she understood that, for high school students who struggle with fundamental skills, "comprehension was never going to be where it needed to be.
"I started to be able to see exactly where my students may be needing support, and I had the tools to help (or at least know where to start collaboration with teachers in the lower grades)," Eggers said in an email. "Also, the courses on vocabulary, syntax, graphic organizers, and critical thinking are tools that I can utilize in my classes at the high school level."
Eggers said she benefited in another way -- she was able to help her own kindergartner.
"I could understand his progress report, which indicated strengths and weaknesses in phonological awareness, and what's even better is that I actually knew how I could begin to help him," she said. "It also made school-from-home easier during the covid-19 closures because I understood the skills he was working on and could help him when he struggled."
In all, 4,610 Arkansas educators have completed all 14 courses of the reading science awareness pathway. The number of completers of the individual courses is as high as 20,833, Kiffany Pride, the education division's director of curriculum and assessment, reported. That was for the first course, which first became available in June 2018.
While middle and high school teachers must complete the reading science awareness program by the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, elementary teachers and all special education teachers must go through the more comprehensive R.I.S. E. Academy to develop proficiency. Until recently the academy required personal or on-site training over six days, rather than video awareness courses that can be done in a teacher's home.
The elementary and special education teachers must demonstrate their proficiency through classroom observations of their work that are conducted by certified assessors or by taking a state-approved reading test. The demonstrations of proficiency are required by the Right to Read Act of 2017 and must be accomplished by the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.
Smith, the assistant education commissioner, said a five-year, $38 million grant received by the state last year will support the reading initiative by enabling schools and districts to purchase curriculum, provide additional professional teacher training and build community support for the culture of reading.
"You are going to see partnerships with organizations such as Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to get books in the hands of our youngest readers," Smith also said about the grant money.
The state agency is now reviewing the 116 applications from schools and school systems for the initial distribution of $9 million.
"People are doing the right work. It's hard work," Smith said. "We are turning the ship on how we used to teach reading in kindergarten through second grade pretty significantly. I think it has been successful. We are not there yet. Not everyone has been trained but, my goodness, we sure are off to a good start."