How do you teach a child to R-E-A-D?
The state is using mandated reading camps to help thousands of third-graders at risk of being held back because of low FCAT scores. The stakes are high.
By RON MATUS
Published July 4, 2004
Tony Green leans back in his chair, hands on belly, thumbs on pages. He spreads the book apart as if it were a poker hand.
Slowly, line by line, his eyes plow through words.
Around the classroom at Fuguitt Elementary School in Largo, 14 other third-graders quietly strive to break new ground while teachers hover, ready to drop seeds of advice.
This is independent reading time at summer camp, an exercise designed to build a student's reading muscles.
For 10 minutes, eyes scan, lips move, brains strain.
Then the first yawn escapes.
Around Florida this summer, thousands of third-graders are hunkered down in state-mandated reading camps. All scored poorly on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Many are at risk of being held back a year.
Altogether, 45,000 third-graders - more than 1 in 5 in Florida - flunked the reading portion of the FCAT this year, about the same number that failed last year.
For many of them, summer camp is a last-ditch effort to make it to fourth grade. In coming weeks, some will earn promotion because of better work or improved test scores, but many won't.
Reading experts won't be surprised.
Behind Florida's massive push to produce better readers, they say, is a summer camp policy that is too little, too late.
By and large, the camps aren't long enough and the teachers don't have enough literacy training to make a big difference, they charge. And by third grade, struggling readers have had three or four years to fall behind - a learning gap that can't be narrowed in four to six weeks.
The camps are "a stop-gap measure," says Dick Allington, a University of Florida education professor and president-elect of the International Reading Association. "The state needs to be doing a lot more than trying to solve kids' problems in a three or four-week period."
The state is doing more, including offering better training to teachers and requiring schools to zero in on struggling readers in earlier grades, says Department of Education spokeswoman Frances Marine.
"The assumption is that reading camps are the only intervention that we have, and that's absolutely not true," she says. "The camp is one piece of a puzzle."
There is good reason the camps inspire debate: Poor readers are more likely than their peers to drop out of school, get stuck in dead-end jobs and wind up in jail. And when it comes to learning how to read, the first few years in school are critical.
In Pinellas, about 900 third-graders enrolled in the camps, which ended June 30.
They had 22 days to catch fire.
Morning light streams through wall-length windows as the teachers divide the students into small groups. Each is assigned a character in a play about ranching out West.
When Julie Gray, a first-year teacher from Woodlawn Elementary in St. Petersburg, monitors and encourages the students, they slog through their lines. When she leaves, they sputter to a stop.
"Go ahead, Montrell," Ms. Gray says when she returns.
Montrell Harrison, a well-dressed boy with a big but infrequent smile, sits a few feet from the rest of his group.
Montrell shakes his head.
"My head hurts," he says.
Summer camp - which is much more school than camp - is not mandatory. Of 1,800 Pinellas third graders eligible this year, only half showed up.
The ones who did came with a range of issues.
Fifteen students are assigned to the class taught by Ms. Gray and Charon Belford, a 26-year veteran teacher from Bauder Elementary in Seminole.
Eight are white, three are black, three are Hispanic and one is of mixed race. Some have learning disabilities. Some seem constantly tired. Their reading skills vary widely.
Tests at the start of camp showed eight students could identify and pronounce words at a third-grade level. One was actually performing at an eighth-grade level, but she didn't always understand what she read.
Two were at the kindergarten level. Two were below that.
Reading is an acquired skill, more like riding a bike than rocket science.
To do it right, many things must happen at once: Letters must be recognized, words decoded, meaning constructed. For most people, the process happens quickly and effortlessly.
University of Northern Colorado professor Michael F. Opitz offers this analogy: New drivers can step on the gas, free the brake or turn the steering wheel, but unless all of those things are coordinated, the car won't move.
"The whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts," says Opitz, who co-wrote the reading program Pinellas County used for summer camp.
There are many reasons why some children skate into reading, and others stumble.
Learning disabilities, cultural differences, children whose first language isn't English - all those factors can be hurdles. So can households where parents don't read much and don't provide reading models for their children.
To complicate matters, experts disagree about the best way to teach reading.
Some say letters and sounds must be planted first, and rooted firmly through repetition. Others say children will learn quicker if they listen to other people read and are immersed in books. In academic circles, the pendulum swings between those poles.
In Pinellas, summer camp melds both approaches.
Between their arrival at 8 a.m. and their departure three hours later, students unscramble letters to make words, think of words that rhyme and break big words like "suspenseful" into syllables. They read, read, read - poems out loud; books to themselves.
Every day, they listen to their teachers read.
One day, Ms. Gray reads from Here Comes McBroom, a book about a farmer who tills unusual crops and whose farm is beset by strange animals. She told the students to make pictures in their heads as they heard the words, to visualize the onions the size of pumpkins and mosquitoes big enough to pick up a house.
"There's tongue twisters in here," she said at one point, offering another lesson.
If a word is too hard on the first try, don't worry, she says.
Just go back and try again.
Montrell's eyes are the first to wander.
Minutes after independent reading begins, he puts his book flat on his desk and his head on top of it. He sucks his thumb. He chews on his knuckles.
He heads to the bathroom.
Within 10 minutes, the jitters spread. One girl rubs her eyes and stares at the ceiling. Another boy puts his head down.
Montrell tries again.
He uses a pencil to guide his eyes across the words, but every few seconds lifts his eyes. Mrs. Belford asks him to read out loud, and he does, slow but sure. She nods with approval, encouraging him.
After she leaves, Montrell points to words with his finger, his mouth moving . Seconds later, he turns the page.
He looks up. He shakes his leg. Soon he is talking to the girl next to him.
When Mrs. Belford rings a bell to signal reading is over, Montrell turns back in his seat.
Saved by the bell.
The state first mandated reading camps last year, but the order was issued late, and the camps were done on the fly.
This year's camps were longer, more sophisticated and more expensive. For the second year in a row, the state chipped in $25-million to help defray district costs.
Many districts opted for 4- to 6-week sessions that lasted 3 to 5 hours a day, and 10:1 student-teacher ratios. With smaller classes and a total focus on reading, students can't help but improve, says Marilyn Blackmer, the elementary curriculum supervisor for Hillsborough schools.
"You have to believe with all your heart that the children will show progress," she says.
Allington, the UF professor, is skeptical.
Some studies show the most that can be expected from a monthlong summer camp is two months worth of learning gains, he says. For students a year or more behind, "you can't expect much."
What's needed are summer camps every year, beginning after kindergarten, he says.
Other researchers say longer camps are better. The state suggested 6 to 8 weeks, four days a week, with 5.5 hours of instruction a day. But districts made the final decision.
"We don't provide a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach," says Marine, the DOE spokeswoman.
Good reading is like healthy eating, says Opitz, the University of Northern Colorado professor.
People with good eating habits know proper diet is a lifestyle, not a fad, and good readers know reading isn't just an academic exercise.
Every day, students in the Pinellas camps pick out new books to read at home.
At Tony Green's house, parents are there to help.
Tony has struggled, in part, because of an eye condition that made it harder for him to focus on words properly, says his mother, Elizabeth Green.
She worries, too, that he might have the same reading disabilities she had as a kid.
"I'm looking at myself in the mirror when it comes to Tony," she says in their Clearwater duplex. "I truly understand when he says, "I don't want to read.' "
Every night during the school year, Green and her husband take turns reading with Tony, even after Mom's 12-hour days as a nurse assistant and Dad's double shifts as a cook.
"You have to read to get a job, you have to read to read a menu," Mom tells Tony, sitting next to her on the couch. "Reading is everywhere. It's extremely important."
Tony grins. "It's also ex-treeeem-ly important to watch TV!" he says, stretching a vowel and giggling.
Mom gives him the look.
The state won't be crunching numbers to see how well summer camps work.
The proof of success will be in the big picture - whether more students are reading at grade level, Marine says.
In Pinellas and Hillsborough, district officials say they plan to measure how well students did on tests before and after summer camps, but those results won't be available for a few weeks.
Even then, statistics won't give the full picture, says Carol Thomas, assistant superintendent of elementary education in Pinellas.
Here's how she defines success:
"When we have kids who wouldn't pick up a book and read, and now they have a reading log . When you have a child who looks at you and says, "I'm not stupid anymore. I can read.' "
On the last day of camp, 11 students celebrate with Mrs. Belford and Ms. Gray.
Montrell is not here. Neither are three others.
The teachers hand out plastic-wrapped snack cakes. The students bring their favorite books and stuffed animals for show-and-tell.
For most of them, the future is uncertain.
Those who scored high enough on recent tests or demonstrated improved work will move on to fourth grade. Some will return to third grade briefly before being promoted. Some will stay back another year.
Meanwhile, district officials will pore over data and process feedback from teachers before tweaking camps for next year.
Everyone's hope: fewer kids next summer.
Even on the last day, Mrs. Belford and Ms. Gray are pushing.
At reading time, they continue with a familiar ritual: pasting yellow Post-it notes on desks where students are absorbed in books. For every 10 minutes that students read continuously, they get another note, which eventually translates into treats.
Tony dives into Shonen Jump, a book-length comic book his mom bought him the night before. He cringes when Ms. Gray signals it's time for the next exercise.
"Oh man," Tony whines . "It's just getting good."
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or 727 893-8873.
WHAT TO WATCH FORHere are some basic terms parents should know as they monitor their child's reading skills:
* Phonemic awareness: The ability to notice, think about and work with the individual sounds in spoken words.
* Phonics: The understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language.
* Fluency: The ability to read a text accurately and correctly.
* Vocabulary: The words we must know to communicate effectively.
* Comprehension: Making sense of the words.
- Source: National Institute for Literacy