A problem that had vexed us individually for years surfaced with new intensity during our collaboration with the Northern Lights School Division in Alberta, Canada: Students were not learning to read and write effectively. The secondary school teachers complained that many students could not read and write well enough to respond to the core curriculum subjects. The primary school teachers complained that they could not teach one-third of their students to read and write and gave familiar reasons: many students had learning disabilities or came from families with poor language skills. In one school, about two out of five students were referred to special education programs by the end of grade 3. But, with the exception of the early literacy tutorial, the extensive special education and other remedial programs were not helping students become literate.
As we and the teachers, parents, and administrators of the district discussed the problem and examined test data, we concluded that, indeed, about one-third of the students between grades 4 and 12 were what we termed overage beginning readers. Not surprisingly, many of these students had withdrawn from instruction in a variety of ways, protecting their dignity by proclaiming their distaste for reading and writing and frequently exhibiting inappropriate behavior in class. They were usually not overtly disruptive but had developed a pattern of passive resistance, which dragged down the pace and tone of instruction. Secondary school teachers were unnerved when one-third of their students sat passively in their classes and looked at them hopelessly.
During early discussions with staff and parents, we recognized a duality of opinions. Nearly everyone agreed that there was a problem, but they simultaneously asserted that Northern Lights was a good school district. As we examined provincial and national test data, we found good reasons for their position. The data showed that many of the 20 schools in the district are average or above average. Our study of U.S. data, including data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1998), led us to believe that the problem is typical.
And the problems with the remedial programs were not unusual, either. When we examined research on special education and Title I programs (see, for example, McGill-Franzen & Allington, 1991), we found that the massive categorical programs have made matters worse because the programs often have used less rich curriculums than those for students in regular classrooms. In many pullout programs for students with special needs, highly sequenced, workbook-based curriculums crowd out curriculums geared toward vocabulary development and comprehension instruction in the context of reading.
We felt that knowledge about literacy could illuminate the problem. We reviewed the research on reading (Showers, Joyce, Scanlon, & Schnaubelt, 1998), focusing on how older students acquire literacy (Calhoun, 1997, 1999). We also borrowed liberally from research on how all students learn to read and write and examined initiatives that help "low-probability" students learn to read (Slavin, Madden, Dolan, & Wasik, 1996). In addition, we reexamined the curriculum that the Morse High School in San Diego had developed (Showers, Joyce, Scanlon, & Schnaubelt, 1998).
Gradually, we fine-tuned the curriculum into the Second Chance program. The superintendent, trustees, and council of principals approved it, with individual schools free to choose whether or not to implement the program.
The Second Chance Curriculum
Most of the research emphasized particular avenues to literacy: the study of learning to read words (Ehri, 1999); the study of reading comprehension and the development of strategies to increase comprehension (Garner, 1987; Pressley & Woloshyn, 1995); ranges of reading at the developed level (Duke & Pearson, undated); the study of words that students encounter when reading (Nagy & Anderson, 1987); regular writing and the study of writing (Englert, Raphael, Anderson, Anthony, & Stevens, 1991); the development of sight vocabulary from the students' listening and speaking vocabulary (Stauffer, 1969); and the Picture Word Inductive Model (Calhoun, 1999; Joyce & Calhoun, 1998). We believed that a multidimensional curriculum—giving students several complementary avenues for acquiring literacy—made the most sense.
To provide students with an adequate opportunity to learn—helping them overcome their phobias, learn how to learn, and develop competence—we decided on a curriculum that would occupy 90 minutes each day. The middle and high school students would forego exploratory or elective courses and continue their enrollment in the core academic subjects.
- The Picture Word Inductive Model is the centerpiece. The students study a variety of pictures and "shake out" words from pictures; that is, they identify things that they see in a picture, and the teacher draws a line from those things to an area outside the picture and writes and spells the word or phrase. The students repeat the word and spell it aloud, and what results is an illustrated picture-word dictionary. They are then able to study the words by classifying them and developing phonetic and structural principles, writing titles, sentences, and paragraphs, and then reading them. The teacher then presents students with the words out of context and records the number of words that students have learned and retained.
- Reading a balance of nonfiction and fiction to the students is a regular activity. We use explicit instruction—reading, talking, and thinking aloud—to model comprehension processes and strategies. Teachers read to students daily—a balance of fiction and information books—and model comprehension as they describe what they are learning and "think aloud" about how they use specific comprehension processes. The teachers then give students a text that requires these skills, and the students practice the comprehension processes and strategies that the teachers have demonstrated (see Calhoun, 1997).
- Writing to prompts is a regular activity. Almost every day, the students dictate or write sentences about a picture, write about short film clips, or write about aspects of the books that the teacher reads to them.
- Silent reading, including independent reading at home, is a daily activity. Silent reading gives students practice in word identification and comprehension, acquisition of sight vocabulary, and skills in selecting books to read. Reading independently is often a new activity for most students.
Getting Started
During the 1999–2000 school year, the Northern Lights schools established 15 literacy sections serving 360 students—or about 20 percent of the district enrollment from grades 4 to 9. Each school faculty determined which students to serve first through teacher recommendations and standardized test scores. The students would remain enrolled until the faculty judged that they had become competent enough in reading to participate successfully in the core academic subjects and had shown that they could sustain their growth.
We organized 10 days of staff development, about one day each month, to expand the teachers' repertoires until they could implement the curriculum. The faculty became an action research community, studying the progress of the students. The district support cadre participated in another 10 days of study and mentored the other teachers throughout the year. During the staff development sessions, teachers studied the components of the program, including the research base, and the components were demonstrated repeatedly. Our first collective study focused on students, beginning with their characteristics and proceeding to their literacy progress.
The Second Chance Students
We confirmed the teachers' judgments about student competence by looking at standardized test scores. Because the schools used various tests, such as the Canadian Test of Basic Skills, the Gates/McGinnitie Battery, and the Gray Oral Reading Test, we used grade-level equivalent (GLE) scores to provide roughly equivalent bases. In the elementary school sections (grades 4–6), about half the students read at or below the average scores of students exiting grade 2. In grade-level terms, the gains of those students had been an average 0.25 per year, or about one-fourth of the mean gain. The picture for the middle school students was similar. Half the scores of the grade 7 and 8 students were at about the average of grade 3 students in a normal distribution.
Two-thirds of the entering Second Chance students were boys. Two-thirds of the boys and girls had been labeled special needs and, at the secondary level, had received special assistance for as many as six years.
Implementation as Inquiry
The teachers who volunteered to run Second Chance had a range of specialties. Most teachers had taught self-contained upper-grade elementary classrooms or the various core subjects in the secondary schools. As they expanded their repertoires to include the Second Chance curriculum, they studied their implementation of the curriculum and discussed—among themselves and with the district coordinator and cadre of staff development providers—their problems and successes. In all sections of Second Chance, teachers shared in the struggle to make each component work.
- Resistance to instruction. We discovered that, at first, many middle school students resented being confronted with their literacy problem and losing their elective courses. The resistance continued until the students engaged in independent reading and became aware of the number of sight words that they were learning. In other words, the students needed to learn how to learn and to understand the effects of such learning before they gave up their resistance.
- No independent reading experience. We discovered that almost no Second Chance student had read more than a handful of books over the past several years. To read independently, they had to select books originally written with much younger readers in mind. The teachers found that reading illustrated nonfiction and using the talk-aloud process had a positive effect. Some students pored over a book on gorillas after the teacher read it to them first; others were drawn in by a book on marshes and swamps; a book on gulls intrigued still others.The Second Chance classrooms were filled with illustrated books, ranging in levels from beginning readers to young adults. The teachers decided that no student would leave the room each day without a book under his or her arm. After a few weeks, the students, many of whom were physically large, would gather around their teachers much as younger students do to hear their teachers read stories aloud.
- The need to study words. Students liked classifying words and "shaking" the words out of the picture. Teachers took pleasure in watching their students' personal vocabulary boxes fill with new terms. Identifying words from flash cards helped students see their progress.The teachers analyzed their students' phonetic and structural needs and discovered, to their surprise, that the students' ability to sound out letters was not a major problem. But many students had problems with multiple-syllable words and with the structural analysis of words. Such strategies as concept attainment helped clarify simple word structures. For instance, the teachers gave students examples of plural and singular forms of the same nouns until the students could see or induce the differences.
- The need for writing and more writing. At first, most Second Chance students dictated titles, sentences, and paragraphs related to pictures. The teachers were amazed that many students struggled with even the simplest sentence. Because the writing process was new to most students, as was the process of thinking aloud while writing, the teachers learned to model writing. The classification of material from published books helped. For example, a teacher said, "I'm going to invent a title that will remind you of Dr. Seuss books." When she presented the title, the students examined real Dr. Seuss books to see how the titles resembled the made-up book title.Even though the students were in grades 4–9, practically none of them could write in cursive and had to be taught to do so. Resistant at first, they took pleasure when the teachers moved them into "adult" (or cursive) writing.The teachers decided that creating a safe haven for the Second Chance students was a vital part of their work. They needed to confront students about the state of their learning, to provide them with the opportunity to progress, to present ways of seeing progress, and to ensure that all of the students felt the presence of a caring but relentless mentor who valued them as human beings.
Inquiry into Progress
Throughout the year, the teachers continued to study the vocabulary that the students acquired, the categories of words and phrases that students developed, the books they read, and the writing they produced. The teachers estimated that most students—perhaps three-fourths—were making good progress. They also wanted to know whether the standardized tests would confirm their data about student progress. Using the tests adopted by their schools for general use, the teachers of 12 literacy sections presented data from pretests and end-of-the-year tests for more than 250 students. They reported the data in grade-level equivalents and calculated gains in those terms because GLE is roughly comparable across different norm-referenced tests.
We examined the results, student by student and section by section. For example, a 5th grade student initially scored 1.9 in vocabulary and 2.9 in comprehension on the Canadian Test of Basic Skills. Her exit scores were 4.3 in vocabulary, a gain of 2.4, and 4.6 in comprehension, a gain of 1.7.
- The overall picture. About three-fifths of the students gained from 1.5 to 3.0 GLE during the year. Another one-fifth gained as much or more than the average student (1.0 in GLE terms) does in a year, several times the gains they had experienced in years past. The staff of Second Chance concluded that three-fourths to four-fifths of their students had made real gains on standardized tests. Most Second Chance students had made the first large gains of their school experiences.
- Levels of students. Elementary and middle school students made almost identical gains. This finding was important because some of our colleagues believed that the older students would be much harder to reach.
- Learning disabilities. Two-thirds of the students had been diagnosed with a learning disability. The Second Chance teachers discovered that the progress of special needs students was about the same as those who hadn't been diagnosed as having special needs.
- Scores on entry. The students arrived at Second Chance in various conditions—all were in academic trouble, but some had better scores than others. Entry scores did not predict gains. Students in a given grade who arrived with a score of 2 made gains that were similar to students who arrived with a score of 4.
- Socioeconomic status. The schools serve populations that have different socioeconomic characteristics. But after analyzing the data, we discovered that socioeconomic status did not appear to be a factor in predicting the progress of Second Chance students.
- Opinions of students and parents. The teachers surveyed the students and their parents, and the results generally follow the standardized test results. About 80 percent of the students and the parents felt the experience was positive.
What Do We Believe Now?
We faced a problem that is serious not only in Northern Lights but across the United States and Canada, and we found that research on literacy did not fail us. Neither did those teachers who volunteered to attack a problem that many people see as intractable.
Those teachers made progress with students by building communities of unlikely learners and by relying on solid literacy research. Thus, they moved from a position of hopelessness to one of empowerment, in which a research-based literacy curriculum truly helped older students read.
