ReadingGraph
The science of reading has finally returned to Madison public schools after years of parents, teachers and advocates calling on the district to change its approach to literacy.
The new K-5 literacy curriculum was formally approved for purchase in April 2022, and this is the first school year it’s being used district-wide.
Julie Briggs, the district’s literacy implementation coordinator, says it’s been a big shift.
“Many people across the nation went with the balanced literacy approach, and at the time we thought that we were doing the right thing,” Briggs tells Isthmus. “But as we’ve gone on, we’ve seen our scores are not improving. And it’s not just MMSD or Wisconsin, it’s nationwide.”
So when it came time to choose a new curriculum for teaching literacy, Briggs says the focus had to be “aligned to the science of reading.”
The most recent brain research finds that to learn to read, children need explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension — something often called the “science of reading.” It focuses primarily on how letters sound and relate.
The previous curriculum — referred to as a balanced literacy approach — focused instead on comprehension and the meaning of text from an early age.
The new curriculum — EL Education — devotes two hours to literacy every day. For K-2 that breaks into two blocks: one hour of foundational skills like phonics, and another hour of content-based literacy that can include such things as individual or group reading. It also has a strong focus on social emotional learning and social justice.
Schools involved in the district’s dual language instruction are using Benchmark, a curriculum the district had used in the past, but not to its full extent.
While it’s too early to measure results, Briggs says she’s hearing from teachers and parents that students are already more engaged.
She recalls a recent email from a parent who said their son had never liked to read and write, but with the new approach he’s talking about books he’s reading at the dinner table and even writing poetry.
“It’s just an indicator that our kids are really engaged,” Briggs says. “We want that love, that joy in literacy so that they can flourish.”
But some teachers say learning how to teach an entirely new curriculum with such a quick turnaround has been difficult.
One veteran kindergarten teacher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution says that while she likes the curriculum, she felt underprepared to teach it.
“I’m completely behind this curriculum…and I’m really excited about it, and yet, there are so many things that I feel like were really hard,” she says.
Another teacher who asked to remain anonymous teaches third grade and has been with the district for seven years. She says it’s a lot to manage: “It’s hard to navigate. From a user-friendliness perspective, I don’t find it to be all that friendly.”
She also says EL Education expects a lot from her students. “It’s not just because the curriculum is new,” she says. “It’s hard. It’s challenging — in some ways in a good way — but it presumes that kids will be able to do an awful lot in third grade.”
That’s been particularly apparent for her third graders who don’t get the foundational skills like kids in K-2. She says she’s had to dip into the second and even first grade lessons — but that she hasn’t been trained in the curricula for those grade levels.
Major disruptions in learning throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have also made it hard for her students to sit still and participate in a curriculum that gives them a lot of autonomy and even has students leading some lessons.
Kaylee Jackson, the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, says the district is trying to make sure teachers get the support they need, while also learning the new curriculum themselves.
“It’s definitely new learning and it is a large task,” Jackson says, “but it’s one that our teachers and our leaders have really been asking for and are diving straight into.”
The implementation of the new curriculum also comes at a time when the district, and nation, are dealing with a severe teacher shortage. As of December, there were roughly 100 vacant teaching positions in the Madison school district. Now there are approximately 67 vacancies across all 53 schools, says district spokesperson Tim LeMonds.
Both teachers Isthmus spoke to say the shortage hasn’t affected their ability to learn the curriculum — but it has taken curriculum coaches out of the mix as they fill in for classroom teachers.
“It’s great that we have that flexibility…but they were hired to coach,” the kindergarten teacher says. “That’s made it hard for us to implement this as well and as quickly as we would like.”
But Briggs and Jackson say having principals, coaches and special education teachers trained in the curriculum has shielded the rollout from ongoing vacancies.
“Honestly, the teacher shortage has not been a huge factor in us implementing the materials,” Jackson says.
Briggs says more than 1,200 teachers are participating in LETRS, professional learning that trains teachers on the science of reading. So far, 125 teachers and curriculum coaches have finished the program so they can mentor those just beginning.
The third grade teacher says she’s halfway through the LETRS training, but it’s hard to keep up while also navigating the new curriculum. The district is also in the midst of learning a new science curriculum.
“We’re having to learn two new curricula, on top of being expected to do LETRS training, and it just doesn’t get done,” she says.
Three professional development days have been held in which reps from EL Education and Benchmark come and work with teachers — two more are scheduled for this year, and one was canceled to make up for a recent snow day.
The kindergarten teacher says she’s confused by the order of the training days. They recently had one dedicated to foundation skills like phonics — but they had already been teaching that material for months.
“I wish I had known some of this before, because there were resources that we weren’t aware of,” she says. “A lot of us had been creating a lot of content for kids [when] there was something available, but we just didn’t know.”
Despite the growing pains, both teachers are trying to stay optimistic.
“This needs to happen,” says the kindergarten teacher, who points to the opportunity gap as a big reason for changing how reading is taught. “Equity needs to be served by having a science of reading component in our classrooms.”
“A new curriculum takes time,” the third grade teacher says. “It’s meaty stuff. It’s helpful stuff. It just takes extra effort to think through how to make it work for your kids.”
The hope is that the new curriculum will improve dismal reading scores across the district.
According to the 2021-2022 State Report Card, prepared by the Department of Instruction, only 39.5% of K-12 students in Madison schools were proficient or advanced in reading that school year. The district’s Black students fare worse. In 2021-2022 only 8.8% of Black students were proficient or advanced in reading.
Jackson says it will take three to five years to see results as far as state tests go.
In the meantime, the district will focus on making sure students are excited about their lessons and growing teachers’ confidence in the curriculum.
Briggs says building a district of successful readers is going to take the support of families and the community.
Jackson agrees.
“We are in a national reading crisis. We have a state reading crisis, and our local data is not where we want it to be,” Jackson says. “In order to make real change, it’s gonna take all hands on deck.”
