FCAT scores have hundreds of Pinellas third-graders spending four weeks in a summer reading camp.
By STEPHEN HEGARTY
Published June 4, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - Teacher Karen Pirone scooted her chair closer to 9-year-old Rebekah Karrick, then handed her a sheet of paper.
"I'm going to ask you to read to me for about a minute," Pirone said softly. "Okay. Start."
Rebekah read quietly: "When Dan was at the beach, he wanted to make a sand castle. ... "
Though her reading was choppy in places, Rebekah knew all the words. She was only a few sentences from the end when her time ran out.
Simple as it seemed, that 60-second exercise helped Pirone determine what Rebekah needs to be a better reader. And that's the point of Pinellas County's summer reading camps, which began intensive instruction this week.
Monday through Thursday until June 26, hundreds of Pinellas third-graders will spend at least one hour a day working closely with a teacher. They will read aloud and read silently. For many, the goal is to learn enough to move on to fourth grade.
Their promotion is in jeopardy because they were among the 1,800 third-graders in Pinellas County - and 43,000 statewide - who failed this year's FCAT reading test.
Pinellas got an early start on its reading camps. Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando open their camps next week. Citrus starts the week after.
Time already is tight.
The state was hoping districts would provide five to eight weeks of reading instruction lasting four to five hours a day. That would add up to 120 hours or more of actual learning time. But the statewide average is looking more like 78 hours of instruction.
Pinellas is offering four weeks of camp, with an hour or so of intensive instruction each day. That adds up to 28.5 hours. Many districts - including Hernando and Pasco - are providing two-week camps.
Is that enough time to give the third-graders the push they need?
"Short as it is, this actually can be effective for the kids on the borderline," said David Denton, director of school readiness and reading for the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta. "Some kids can get a lot out of it if it is the right kind of instruction."
For teachers like Karen Pirone, selected because of their experience at teaching reading, it doesn't matter whether it is enough time.
It is all they have.
On the second day of instruction, Pirone had some advice for her 9:30 a.m. group.
"You know, there's "stuck on the word' and there's "stuck on the meaning,"' Pirone said. "And I think that's what's getting us - stuck on the meaning."
Pirone sat at a small table shaped like a half circle - her on the inside, four kids on the outside. She wants to train the children so that when they lose the meaning of a reading passage, they stop and reread it.
"Stop!" she said. "Don't go on and add more stuff."
To say a third-grader struggles with reading doesn't mean the youngster can't read individual words. Youngsters often engage in what experts refer to as "word calling" - reading words as if they exist independently of each other.
Where they struggle is in putting it all together, understanding and recalling what they read. The state's reading test demands they do exactly that. It's no wonder parents are puzzled that their child, who routinely reads words on signs and on the backs of cereal boxes, could fail a reading test.
Ronda Karrick of St. Petersburg knows precisely where her daughter, Rebekah, needs work.
"She can read. She knows the words. That's not the problem," Karrick said. "It's the answering questions afterwards."
The camps mark something of a reversal in the state's strategy for summer school. In recent years, the state placed less emphasis on summer programs, allowing districts to spend that money for remediation throughout the school year.
But with thousands of third-graders facing retention, the state is now relying on summer school for small miracles.
Many of the children in the Pinellas camps have solid grades in reading and everything else. The only thing keeping them from fourth grade is a passing score on the FCAT.
"He had a good report card, and then he just barely failed the FCAT on his reading," said Samantha Faulkner, whose son Deven Barrett is in Pirone's class. "I told him, "it's not that you've done anything wrong."'
Deven, 9, is proving to be a quick study. He and Rebekah show signs that they are better prepared to pass a reading test now than they were in March, when the FCAT was given. In the academic life of a 9-year-old, a lot of learning can happen in the months between the FCAT and summer.
"Some kids are so close, the camps are exactly what they need," said Mary Laura Openshaw, state director of Just Read! Florida. Openshaw has helped coordinate many of the reading camps.
She and others downplay the passing-the-test aspect of the reading programs.
"Some students are so far behind, they're not ready for fourth grade," Openshaw said. "The expectation for them is that they'll improve their reading skills."
