Reading and writing go hand in hand

NEA Today, Jan 2000

Emphasizing standards and staff development, a new literacy program in Plainfield, New Jersey, gets the whole school involved in reading education.

As a veteran teacher with 20 years experience, Valerie Marcinkiewicz, has seen reading reforms come and go. But she's excited about the newest reform implemented by her Plainfield, New Jersey, school district.

"It's effort-based, not ability-based," says Marcinkiewicz, the literacy coordinator at Hubbard Middle School. "All children are expected to achieve standards. No one says at the outset that certain children don't have the ability to achieve beyond a certain level."

The new Plainfield program, in place since September, is designed to get kids reading, writing, and talking about books, and Marcinkiewicz isn't the only teacher embracing it. The program is being taught in most district elementary and middle schools, as part of the America's Choice Whole School Reform.

According to Linda Simon, the literacy coordinator at F.W. Cook Elementary, teachers appreciate the extensive staff development that accompanies the workshop approach.

"No one is just saying, 'go do this,'" says Simon.

In addition, teachers receive in-service training on New Jersey's new standards, which gives them a better understanding of how to assess students' work.

By using a rubric to grade students' writing, for example, teachers know how many students do or do not understand organization and structure and can adjust lessons accordingly. Workshops at most schools last 80 minutes, allowing plenty of time for more individualized attention and small group instruction.

"We let kids see the rubrics ahead of time," Marcinkiewicz says. "There are no secrets. Everyone's on the same page, as far as knowing what's expected of them and what's good work."

As part of the program, elementary and middle schools are establishing classroom libraries and designating a "book of the month" to be read aloud in every class-and read by every school employee. Students are likely to be asked to discuss a book by a cook, custodian, or principal.

The program-which encourages Students to read at least 25 books a school year-also links reading and writing, a departure from many other programs, Marcinkiewicz says.

For example, after reading Arthur's Birthday by Marc Tolon Brown to her first graders, Simon encouraged them to model the writer's technique of drawing in readers to start their own stories.

"I'm already seeing improvement," Simon says. "Children are only writing what they can read themselves, and they are using invented spelling. But they are asking, 'Do I have enough detail?' And they aren't as afraid to put something on paper."

At the middle school level, students are keeping reading logs where they write about novels of their choice using terms and topics discussed in class. They also keep a portfolio of their writing to track their progress.

So far, Marcinkiewicz is quite pleased with program results.

"It's amazing," she says, "to hear students in these small groups discussing authors' styles, and picking out good examples of closure or a clear point of view."

For more, contact Valerie Marcinkiewicz at 908/226-2699 or Linda Simon at 908/753-3275.

Resource:

Scholastic Reading Inventory is a new, literature-based interactive reading assessment program for grades 1-12. Prices start at $369 for a single computer license for 40 students. For more information call 877/268-6871.

READING RESOURCE

How should young children learn to read and write? Elementary school teachers have pondered this question ever since the advent of formal schooling.

But a seminal new interactive guide, Reading and Writing Grade by Grade: Primary Literacy Standards for Kindergarten Through Third Grade (National Center on Education and the Economy, 1999) offers a simple, concise approach.

The recommendations of the consensus document- written by 22 of the nation's leading reading and writing experts, from all sides of the reading wars-give teachers specific guidelines with detailed, easy-to-follow examples.

The document also recommends reading benchmarks for each of the early grades. For example, kindergartners should be learning phonemic awareness and know how to produce and recognize rhyming words and to isolate initial consonants in single-syllable words. Third graders should be reading multiple books by the same author and be able to identify differences among them.

Teachers and parents can use these benchmarks to determine if their children are on target and to ensure that students are reading and writing well by the third grade. For more about this resource, see the review on page 42.

To order, call 888/3611-6233 or visit www.ncee.org. The publication costs $45 and includes reading and writing CDs that show students reaching the standards.