New reading program
improves test scores in Fort Worth

FORT WORTH — Nearly every school day, Fort Worth middle school students drop what they're doing for a newly mandated reading class.

School officials are trying to teach some of them what they failed to teach them in elementary school: how to sound out words they don't know and to read fluently. Students who already have the basic reading skills are given advanced material.

The new approach, called Corrective Reading, was first tried in 1998-99 in Fort Worth at J.P. Elder Middle School. Elder's reading TAAS test scores improved from 65 percent passing in 1998 to 78 percent passing in 1999.

Now, every middle school and some high schools and elementary schools are using the program for older students who are below average. The program is part of the district's overall reading initiative that begins in pre-kindergarten.

"It's a first-aid station, if you will, to mend the missing section," said Judith Scott, the district's Title I reading and language arts coordinator.

Schools test students for placement in one of four levels. The levels are phonics, speed and fluency, comprehension and reasoning and writing. Students are divided by ability and assigned to a classroom.

The classes meet during the same period, four days a week.

Every middle school teacher has been trained to use the program. For students who need remedial help, the lessons are tightly scripted. A teacher tells students to repeat after her as she sounds out a word. In other lessons, children take turns reading passages aloud. Science teachers, coaches, even librarians lead the instruction.

"It's not the most creative kind of thing," Elder Principal Mary Jara Wright said. "But it seems to work. It has improved reading ability, TAAS scores and, unexpectedly, also improved math scores."

At Elder, a group of mentally challenged children is working at the kindergarten and first- grade level. Other students are reading at the fourth- and fifth- grade levels.

In the comprehension class, students read passages with science and social studies information. Students in Elder's special high-academic program are reading literature and diagramming sentences.

Barbara Black, a math specialist at Elder, said some parents with children in high- academic programs complained at first. They didn't like the idea of their children using "Corrective Reading" because it carried the stigma of a remedial program.

Elder officials explained the purpose of the program for high-achieving students and changed its name to STAR, meaning Students and Teachers Achieving Recognition.

As they progress, students earn points that can be redeemed for prizes, such as pencils and ice cream.

"It's fun and neat how they give you stuff when you get to a certain level," sixth-grader Noah Rustin said. "It's one of my better classes. I feel like my reading has gotten better."

Seventh-grader Mark Luna said the program is "OK."

"Now I'm starting to get higher grades," he said.

Rubidel Johnson, president of the Fort Worth Education Association, said teachers love the phonics instruction. But they resent the notion that Corrective Reading is the most important part of the day.

Michelle Melendez, (817) 390-7541

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