Can common ground be found on teaching reading in California?

People that have been perceived as being in opposite corners over how to teach reading in California have released a joint paper agreeing that foundational reading skills like phonics, vocabulary and comprehension should be taught explicitly and systematically to all students.

And children who are learning English as a second language, who make up 1 in 4 first graders in California, also need lessons to practice speaking and listening in English, and to make connections with other languages they know.

In addition, they agreed that all children should be screened early to identify both needs and strengths in reading, taking into account students' level of English-language proficiency and the language in which they have been taught. They agreed that such screeners, while identifying children who may face difficulty learning how to read, should not be used to diagnose dyslexia or other reading disabilities or to segregate students into separate classrooms as special education students.

The authors hope that the agreements set out in the paper will help California

policymakers provide clearer guidance for how schools should be teaching literacy for all students.

“Whether this will turn out to be similar to the Good Friday accords, that basically ended the Irish civil war, or the Oslo Accords, that did nothing to end the problems in the Middle East, depends on what happens now,” said Claude Goldenberg, professor of education emeritus at Stanford University, who coauthored the paper.

Arun Ramanathan, CEO of the organization Pivot Learning, which published the paper, said he hopes California will continue these conversations and develop a comprehensive policy around literacy.

They could not agree on some things, however, like how much time should be devoted to foundational skills like phonics and vocabulary, or exactly how early screening to identify students who may be at risk for reading difficulties should be implemented.

The paper's authors say they hope the agreements help clear up some misperceptions that seemed to pit English-learner advocates against those advocating for comprehensive screening for dyslexia and more explicit instruction of foundational reading skills such as phonics.

“When people are in their different parishes, there's a possibility of an echo chamber effect,” said Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, assistant professor of San Jose State University, who co-authored the report. “We kind of need to burst the bubble of those chambers and get those conversations happening.”

Only 42% of California's third graders can read and write at grade level, according to the state's latest Smarter Balanced test. California has faced increased pressure to adopt a comprehensive literacy plan to ensure that all children can read by third grade, including a clear focus on skills known as “foundational” — phonics (connecting letters to sounds), phonemic awareness (identifying distinct units of sound), fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Yet some advocates for English learners have raised concerns that an increased focus on phonics might exclude other critical skills, such as developing oral language skills, vocabulary and connections between English and other languages.

To come up with the agreements, Muñoz-Muñoz and Goldenberg interviewed experts privately and then brought them together in person to listen to one another's perspectives and find some common ground.

The agreements they made may seem basic, but many of those taking part were surprised that they had so much in common.

“Hearing someone say multilingual learners need foundational skills sounds like such a simple thing to say, but it was superimportant, supercritical and not often said,” said Kareem Weaver, a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and cofounder of the literacy advocacy group Fulcrum.

Participants focused on three topics: literacy for English learners, early screening and assessment of reading skills, and foundational literacy skills.

“Those seemed to be the ones that were most salient, that were creating bottlenecks, so to speak,” Goldenberg said.

Participants agreed that California's low literacy scores cannot be attributed to one single cause.

Becky Sullivan, director of K-12 English-language arts curriculum and instruction for the Sacramento County Office of Education, said the group agreed that students are not only often missing foundational literacy skills like phonics, vocabulary and comprehension, but English learners are also not always getting the language instruction they need.

“You have to set aside time in your instructional schedule for both,” said Sullivan. “It's not an either-or conversation.”

One contentious issue has been whether California should implement universal early screening for dyslexia and other reading difficulties to identify students in kindergarten through second grade who need extra help matching letters to sounds, connecting sounds to words and linking words in a sentence.

A bill that would have required all schools to screen all students in kindergarten through second grade for risk of dyslexia died in the Assembly Education Committee, in part because of opposition by the California Teachers Association. Many English-learner advocates also opposed the bill because they believed it didn't consider the complexities of bilingual students and were concerned that many English learners might be misidentified as having reading difficulties when they were simply still learning English.

“We want every other child to receive the instruction they deserve, but there's this history in which assessments have tracked kids and segregated students into lower academic tracks,” said Hernandez.

In this paper, the experts agreed that early reading screeners are not a diagnostic tool to determine whether a student has a learning disability such as dyslexia. Rather, they said screeners should be used to help identify both students' needs and strengths, taking into account students' level of English-language proficiency and the language in which they have been taught.

The participants agreed that more training is needed for teachers on how and why screeners should be used.

“There's concern of overidentification, but there's also concern of under-identification of students who may be at risk for reading difficulties. So we need a lot more professional development in the state around the appropriate use of universal screeners,” Sullivan said.