By Elizabeth Dubrulle
Correspondent

Paige Begin, a second-grader at Bartlett Elementary School, works hard while taking the Terra Nova test, part of the Literacy Collaborative Program that is part of the Goffstown school curriculum. (Elizabeth Dubrulle Photo)

Goffstown’s first- and second- graders are improving their reading and writing skills thanks to an early literacy program introduced over the past several years.

The Literacy Collaborative Program offers teachers a flexible and fluid approach to immediately identify problem areas in these subjects and correct them.

An intensive course of study, the program essentially offers “four years of growth in reading and writing in a three-year period,” said Dave Bousquet, principal of Bartlett Elementary School.

The curriculum was designed by educators at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. Long a leader in educator training, Lesley adapted successful reading and writing teaching methods from across the country when formulating its approach to early childhood literacy. As part of its program, the institution provided extensive training for Bartlett’s literacy coordinator Mary Starvish, as well as more limited training for the rest of the school’s faculty.

Starvish has attended hundreds of hours of seminars and symposiums at Lesley, first to become qualified as literacy coordinator and then to remain as current as possible on the most effective teaching methods for these subjects. The entire Bartlett faculty received at least 40 hours of training from educators at Lesley in the first year after the school became involved with the program.

The fundamental aspects of the Literacy Collaborative Program relies on three processes deemed vital to establishing a solid foundation for students: the writing process, word study, and guided reading.

Brigid McNamee explains the instructions for a reading test to her second-grade class at Bartlett Elementary School. The test is part of a literacy program that is helping studends make great strides in Goffstown classrooms. (Elizabeth Dubrulle Photo)

Developed by educators at the University of New Hampshire, the writing process asks students to approach their work as if they were professional writers, meaning that students are generally free to choose their own topics for writing assignments but are expected to spend considerable time revising and editing their work, so they can learning more effectively from their mistakes.

Word study is essentially phonics, although teachers also incorporate elements of the whole-word approach to learning language as well.

Guided reading breaks students into small groups based on their reading level. Children all read copies of the same book and then discuss the material, in imitation of the book clubs that have become so popular among adults in the last few years. This curriculum, coupled with regular and vigorous assessment techniques, lets teachers work individually with students to ensure they can think critically about the material they read and “solve words” that are unfamiliar to them.

Classroom teachers at Bartlett receive additional support both from coordinator Starvish, who spends a considerable portion of her time actively teaching students, and from Reading Recovery teachers Linda Beloin and Sara Smith.

Reading Recovery is another innovative program designed to boost literacy at a young age and ensure that all children become competent in reading and writing commensurate with their grade level. Reading Recovery works in conjunction with Leslie’s Literacy Collaborative Program and is, in fact, a prerequisite. But where the Literacy Collaborative Program was designed for every student, regardless of ability, Reading Recovery operates as an intervention program for first-grade students struggling to meet expectations for their grade level.

All incoming first-graders undergo a 45-minute assessment process in late August so that Bartlett’s educators can identify those who may potentially experience problems in reading and writing. Typically, first graders testing into the lower 20 to 30 percent are placed in Reading Recovery, which is an accelerated, one-on-one tutorial that typically last 12 to 20 weeks. Complicating the teachers’ efforts are the disparate educational backgrounds of incoming first-graders. While almost every child entering first grade at Bartlett has attended some form of kindergarten, the focus and quality of these kindergartens vary widely from school to school. Some are essentially day-care centers, while others stress social interactions, and still others focus on academics. Those students that have not attending any kind of kindergarten are usually not placed in Reading Recovery initially because teachers need to see how they respond to formalized school settings before they can adequately assess their reading and writing abilities.

Instead, those students are assessed after they have attended school for about six months and then placed in Reading Recovery if necessary.

All of the teachers responsible for putting these literacy programs into place agree that the lack of a public kindergarten is a detriment to Goffstown’s children.

“There’s a lack of transition between kindergarten and first grade,” said Beloin. “We have no idea what we’re dealing with when we start the school year with a group of first-graders. We just don’t have the knowledge base of their backgrounds that we would have with kindergarten teachers in our system.”

Although some of the private kindergarten programs are solid academically, the August assessment yields results that many parents might find surprising. “Usually, 50 to 60 percent of incoming first-graders come in below our grade-level expectations at the assessment,” Starvish said.

By the time students reached the third grade, this number had dropped dramatically to less than 20 percent on average who are not working at or above their grade level, and many of these students were involved in the special education program. Even then, these few students are seldom more than six months behind their peers, a remarkable accomplishment when standard practice has been to not even identify those students with special education needs until the third grade.

At Bartlett and other schools, such as Maple Avenue Elementary School, have adopted the program, most of these students are identified much earlier and can receive the additional care they require at a younger age. This additional attention has also helped narrow the gap between special education students and their peers, allowing them to spend more time in traditional classroom settings.

Bartlett’s administrators and teachers have been encouraged by the results they have seen in their students since introducing the program four years ago. Conducting a series of tests developed at both the local and national levels, their students have shown dramatic improvements in reading and writing abilities. For example, in the Terra Nova test, which is used to set nationwide norms for second- graders, the program’s success can be easily appreciated when looking at the number of students working at or above their grade level: in 2002, 66 percent of Bartlett’s secondgraders tested to this level; in 2003, that number rose to 74 percent, and in 2004, the number rose yet again to 90 percent. But Bousquet is quick to point out that numbers don’t always give a complete picture of a program’s success or failure, as evidenced by the school’s disappointing showing on the statewide New Hampshire Educational Improvement and Assessment Program test last year.

Educators had expected this test to confirm all of the other data they had collected that highlighted the success of their efforts. Although the test results earned Bartlett a passing grade as far as state standards were concerned, administrators and faculty had expected more spectacular results.

Puzzled as to what had happened a bring the results down, they discovered a number of glaring inconsistencies, such as a student who had always been performing well above grade level receiving low marks on the test, even lower than a student who had struggled to work at grade level for several years.

They are hoping that this year’s results with the newly designed NECAP (New England Common Assessment Program) test, which just replaced the NHEIAP in an effort to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, will more adequately reflect the strides they see their students making and the results of other well known assessment methods they have employed.

“That’s the problem with oneshot testing,” said Smith. “It doesn’t give a complete picture.” And the whole picture is what the Literacy Collaborative Program is all about, according to Beloin.

Her colleagues agree. “To my mind, there is no other way of teaching students to read than the methods found in this balanced and flexible program,” Smith said.