Secondary School Reading: Specialists in high school may be rare, but districts see great potential - Statistical Data Included

School Administrator, Jan, 2002 by Linda Blackford

Three years ago, Principal Mike McKenzie looked over test scores at his 1,700-student high school in Lexington, Ky., and was horrified at the reading scores. In all four grades, students who supposedly knew how to read were having trouble with sophisticated texts, especially on Kentucky's analysis-heavy test, the Commonwealth Accountability and Testing System.

McKenzie decided to hire a teacher to help students with reading skills and help other teachers address this need in their high school classes. After two years, test scores started to soar, and other schools in the Fayette County Public Schools wanted to emulate the model. So Superintendent Robin Fankhauser allocated $750,000 to put a reading specialist in all 11 middle schools and five high schools in the district.

The move--along with the rather large budgetary allocation that departed from the personnel funding formula-- raised eyebrows around town. Was Fayette County admitting that high school students couldn't read? In fact, the school district was at the forefront of a movement to hire reading experts in secondary schools that is slowly spreading across the United States.

Greater Sophistication

Experts say the change stems from two factors. While national reading test scores have remained stagnant for years, many more states are adopting high-stakes assessments as graduation requirements.

These high-stakes assessments test more complex reading and writing skills of students than multiple-choice tests ever did. Then there is also the reality of a new technological and knowledge-based economy that requires a work force of people who can read, analyze and question information quickly and more efficiently than ever before.

"We now have two problems--those who can't read and those who can't read well enough," says Catherine Snow, a professor at Harvard University's Center for Language and Literacy. "We've come to grips with the fact that we need to go to another level."

In Fayette County, the investment in reading specialists for middle and high schoolers has paid off with increasing scores on both Kentucky's statewide test and other standardized tests the district uses. "Things just change so fast, and literacy needs have increased," says Kim Walters-Parker, the former reading specialist who started at Lafayette and now oversees the district's 15 reading specialists from central office. "Textbooks got thicker and students have to comprehend much more sophisticated information than they ever have."

Her budget is now about $750,000 a year, which includes salaries, benefits and training needed for the specialists.

And interest in the practice is growing. "If I spoke at the conferences I'm invited to, I'd never be here," he says.

From Middle to High

Increased performance is potent persuasion for superintendents and school boards to spend extra money on such an initiative. Funding usually comes from cobbling together local money with Title I funds.

Some administrators may place a reading specialist in a middle school only to realize the effort needs to expand to upper grades as well. Judy Tobasco started as a reading specialist in the Volusia County, Fla., schools 15 years ago, assigned to Galaxy Middle School. She designed a program that turned a scheduled elective class into a reading class for below-level students. There were no special education or English-as-a-second-language students, so Tobasco didn't have to teach basic literacy. These were students who, to put it simply, weren't reading on the level they needed to. "They were just lost out there," she says. "They didn't have any idea how to approach texts."

So she focused on better comprehension skills and expanded vocabularies. The students were tested several times a year. By the time the program, which now is called Intensive Reading, spread to other middle schools, about 2,000 students saw gains, not just in reading but in other subjects, too, because their comprehension was better. So district officials expanded it to the high school.

Today, some 30 reading specialists are employed throughout the 70,000-student district. At the high school, reading is a required class for many struggling 9th- and 10th-grade students. Some of them might have been in the Intensive Reading program in middle school, while others found themselves suddenly overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of reading required in high school.

The class is now crucial for another reason: Starting this year, Florida high school students must pass the reading and mathematics portions of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to graduate.

"It's mushroomed," says Tobasco, who now oversees the program from Volusia County's central office. "Our kids are being tested differently, they need higher-order skills like analysis and inference skills, and it's tough."

Still Tobasco emphasizes that part of any reading specialist's job is to help other teachers learn reading strategies that will help their students. "Reading is everybody's job, not just the reading teacher's."