Paperwork and portfolios preoccupied teachers last summer. This year's proposed session for third-graders reflects lessons learned.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published March 21, 2004
BROOKSVILLE - Last summer, Hernando County's summer reading camp for low-performing third-graders was less than ideal.
Hastily arranged to respond to a state mandate, the program featured big classes, lots of paperwork drills and limited time to help children work toward promotion into the fourth grade.
"It was one of those things where we needed to do it quickly," said Deltona Elementary School teacher Dana Pearce, who taught a summer camp class. "We gave the kids the best we could. But the time frame was not available to us" to do better.
This year, with ample time to prepare, the county staff is making sure it learns from experience. Led by new reading specialist Debbie Pfenning, a team has spent much of the academic year overhauling the curriculum, calendar and core mission that summer camp will serve.
"Basically, the program is going to be focused on teaching the kids to read," Pfenning said.
That means student-teacher ratios of no more than 10 to 1, and use of a state-approved teaching method of intensive reading remediation. The camp will run four hours a day for four weeks, instead of three hours a day for two weeks.
No time will be spent creating portfolios as an alternative promotion option for students who failed the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test reading section. That effort should be completed in the regular classroom, before the school year ends, Pfenning said.
"If a teacher can't pull together a portfolio in a year, we can't expect a summer school teacher to pull one together in four weeks," she said.
Last year, the children and teachers completed mounds of papers aimed at showing whether the students had mastered reading at a third-grade level, despite their FCAT score.
Students who fail the reading portion of the FCAT have three options: complete a portfolio that demonstrates reading proficiency, pass another reading proficiency test or repeat third grade and retake the FCAT.
Pearce, who helped design the new camp, expected the changes to make a big difference as students work toward improving their reading skills and attempt to move on to fourth grade.
"Last year, I had 17 in my group," she said. "That was hard to meet all the needs of the children."
At 10 students to one teacher, Pearce figured, more direct instruction will occur.
That ratio could shrink, Pfenning said, if the district's outreach for volunteer helpers succeeds. She said an effort has begun to find volunteers from HEART Literacy, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and other community organizations.
Pearce liked the switch from repeating the school year curriculum to a different, research-based program geared to remediation. She also applauded the move away from creating portfolios.
"It was not a true indicator of what they had done all year," she said. Overall, "this will be better for the children that we serve."
Hernando is moving in a similar direction as other area districts.
Pasco County schools are expanding their summer program from four to six weeks, and are working to better target students at risk of failure, curriculum director Ruth Reilly said.
Pasco's summer camp plan is not solidified yet, Reilly said, but at least this year the staff knows there is money in the budget to support it.
"Last summer we got very late information, late budget information, so we did have inadequate time," she said.
During the school year, Pasco teachers also have been able to compile portfolio work for their students, and provide remediation and monitoring to make sure families know if their children are faring poorly.
"We are definitely in a better position than we were last year," Reilly said.
Both Hernando and Pasco are headed toward a model that Citrus County schools adopted before the state summer reading camp mandate emerged.
Citrus has offered a summer remedial program for elementary-age children for about five years, Title I specialist Kathy Pomposelli said. The district has kept its class sizes at six students to one teacher, she said, not as a reaction to FCAT-based retention rules, but to give low achievers an extra boost over the summer.
The vast majority of students at risk of failure know well ahead of time, Pomposelli said.
"We're not really changing our plan," she said.
The Hernando program still must be approved by the state Department of Education, Pfenning said. As proposed, it would begin June 2 and run through June 29, at which time children will have the option of taking an alternate test to FCAT.
The program is planned to operate at Pine Grove, J.D. Floyd and Brooksville elementary schools, from 8 a.m. to noon daily. Attendance will be voluntary, and the camp will be open to all third-graders who scored at Level 1 on the reading portion of the FCAT.
Last year, 234 third-graders failed the FCAT. Of those, 152 were retained - 11 times as many as the previous year.
