When I joined Fort Worth ISD as its new chief academic officer in 2019, I immediately noticed some gaps in our literacy framework.
We needed to create a literacy framework and implement new curriculum and products to support that framework. Around that time, we also hired a new executive director of literacy for grades K-12.
A multi-pronged approach—which included the computer-based Lexia Core5 Reading platform—to closing gaps in the district’s instructional quality has worked out very well. In fact, literacy in Fort Worth ISD has changed dramatically since we implemented our literacy framework, curriculum and resources.
Right out of the gate
We started with an intensive few months of framework development focused on the pillars of robust literacy instruction. That literacy framework dictates how literacy is taught at Fort Worth ISD, and is grounded in the science of teaching reading across these four fundamental areas: comprehension, knowledge of words and word parts, writing, and oral reading fluency.
Working with Tim Shanahan, a literacy educator in reading instruction and comprehension, we set forth a plan to help students learn academic vocabulary and get “academic-rich” content to lay the foundation for reading comprehension at a young age. As they then navigated decoding and fundamentals and moved into grades 3-5, the focus would shift away from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” We also wanted our teachers to have the resources, tools, and professional development that they needed to help students throughout the entire journey.
The latter was important because you can have a framework that lives 30,000 feet in the air, but if you’re not providing the resources, tools, professional development, coaching and “boots on the ground” for teachers, that framework will just stay up in the sky.
5 steps to literacy framework success
Here are five ways we brought our literacy framework back “down to earth” and ensured that it supports principals, teachers and students alike:
1. Get the fundamentals down first. Tim helped us nail down this focus to: Knowledge of Words and Word Parts, Oral Reading Fluency, Comprehension and Writing. This helped us focus on lifting up disciplinary literacy, making sure that we were very strong in content, and ensuring students were learning academic vocabulary. We knew that this would help us build up and reinforce comprehension at an early age.
2. Shift to “reading to learn.” We wanted to ensure that our students got academic-rich content as they navigated decoding and fundamentals. Then, as they progress through grades 3-5, the focus shifts from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”
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3. Go beyond elementary grades. Our literacy framework includes an obvious focus on grades K-2, but our middle school principals noticed our success with the literacy program and asked for a similar tool. We decided to add a tool for students in grades 6-8, with a specific focus on sixth and seventh graders who are below the 65th percentile.
4. Make it easy for teachers and principals. When our executive director of literacy sits with teachers to help them better understand phonemes, for example, all of the lessons and related resources are in the literacy platform. We also have professional development for principals who aren’t always privileged to those levels of support when a new piece of technology is introduced. Our principals know what they should be looking for and can monitor that activity and inform instruction on their campuses.
5. Choose a reliable tech partner. We’ve dealt with many companies in terms of people and accessibility. With the team from our literacy program provider, we can call or email, whether it’s an interface not working or a link, and we get immediate responses. For a district this size, that’s important. I can’t fill out 99 Google forms or talk to a chat or an AI robot. I don’t have time for that when I have 95 teachers that can’t get into Zoom.
The results of our efforts so far have been very positive. We’ve seen a significant uptick in “quality usage” of our literacy programs over the last year for students in kindergarten through fifth grade and it’s paying off.
For example, Carroll Peak Elementary School started the school year with 66% of its students reading below grade level. The principal reports they are now down to 31% below grade level, and they are up to 46% of their students are on grade level, versus 27% at the beginning of the year.
In addition, 23% of students are reading above grade level, compared to just 7% at the start of the year. These are all positive points for a school that just one year ago was struggling to get its students reading at grade level. In the end, it’s less about minutes spent on the platform and more about the skills and units gained. We’ve also seen a tight correlation between our literacy program data and our NWEA MAP data, which is pretty exciting.
