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Lazy days? Back to school

As the FCAT hovers, 900 Pinellas third-graders seek help at reading camp.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published May 31, 2005

	A student follows along as another reads aloud during camp Thursday. About 1,500 Pinellas children are attending.

ST. PETERSBURG - The last thing the Williams triplets thought they would be doing this summer is going to school.

Nine-year-old Wesley, Winston and Warren had dreamed of long, lazy days playing with friends. Their mom had promised swimming lessons. Maybe a trip to Busch Gardens.

That is all on hold for now.

The brothers, students at Bardmoor Elementary in Seminole, are attending a six-week summer camp for struggling readers at Maximo Elementary School in St. Petersburg.

As much as they would prefer to be elsewhere, the sacrifice could avert a less desirable fate: having to repeat third grade because they failed the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

If they learn enough at camp to pass another test, they will be promoted to fourth grade.

"I just don't get it," said Shirley Williams, their mom. "We read at home, we read at the park, we read at the library. They know how to read, but they have trouble understanding what they read."

The triplets are not alone. Across Florida, 45,000 third-graders failed the test, about the same number that failed last year, and the year before that.

Some were saved by reading camp. Most were not.

Last week, about 1,500 Pinellas children headed to reading camp. They included about 900 third-graders who are in danger of being held back because they scored at the lowest level on the reading portion of the FCAT.

Because the camp is brief - four hours a day for 22 days - some educators wonder how much it will help children who are reading significantly below grade level. Maria Lindquist, the district's supervisor of elementary reading and language arts, acknowledges that many will still need to repeat third grade. But she said they can glean other benefits from the concentrated instruction.

"We match children to books that are at their reading level so they can spend some serious time practicing," she said. "My expectation is that these children will walk away from summer reading camp with a new found love for reading."

For the second year, the camps are being offered to children who struggled last year as second-graders, as well as to third-graders who performed well enough to pass the FCAT but are still below grade level. About 500 such children are attending one of the six camps, which are being offered from St. Petersburg to Clearwater.

Also enrolled are a few children like Jalissa Jordan, a Bay Point Elementary third-grader who already reads at grade level. Her mother thinks she will benefit from additional instruction this summer.

"She's not there because she needs to be," Jolanda Jordan said. "She's there because it's good for her."

Jalissa was among the 200 children who were at the Maximo Elementary reading camp last week. Seventeen of them - 11 boys and six girls - filed into Laura Kranzel and Becky Micklo's classroom shortly before 8 a.m.

Three had tested below first-grade level. Seven had the reading skills of a first- or second-grader. Five were proficient for their grade level, and two were able to read isolated words at a fifth- or sixth-grade level.

"Who can remember what this means?" Micklo said, raising her right hand and spreading her fingers wide. Several children called out answers.

"That's right," Micklo said. "It means "freeze and focus.' Stop whatever you're doing and freeze."

She reminded the children to hold up four fingers, the American Sign Language signal for the letter "B," if they needed to use the bathroom.

"We don't get up without permission," she said.

At 8:10 a.m., Micklo, who is a third-grade teacher at Tyrone Elementary School, opened a "chapter book" and invited the children to sit on the floor in a semicircle for "Read Aloud."

"Remember that our main character had a liking for this dog that he found," Micklo said. "He was hoping to find a way to sneak food off his dinner plate. What clues did the author give us that the dog was hungry?"

"He was looking sad," Devontae Jenkins said. "His ribs were showing."

Micklo praised the 9-year-old for his correct response and continued reading, modulating her voice and using exaggerated facial expressions. She paused frequently, checking to make sure the children were paying attention.

"Do you have your videos going?" she said at one point, raising her index finger to her temple. "That's a really important strategy."

At 8:20 a.m., another student arrived. One of the problems with reading camp, Kranzel said, is that children don't always come on time. Because the camps aren't mandatory, the teachers can't do much about latecomers.

By 8:25 a.m., the children were getting restless. One by one, they asked for permission to use the bathroom. A boy untangled himself from crisscross position to sit on his feet, then stretched out on his stomach. A girl struck up a conversation with her neighbor.

Micklo glanced at the clock. At 8:30, she closed the book. It was time to move on to the next activity.

Statewide, the percentage of third-graders reading at grade level or higher increased this year from 66 to 67 percent. The number of children reading at the lowest level dropped from 22 to 20 percent.

In Pinellas, the percentage of third-graders who scored at the lowest level decreased from 21 to 19 percent, placing the district at the top of the state's seven urban districts in reading.

Department of Education officials say the improved scores show its third-grade retention policy is working. Much of the credit, they say, goes to the reading camps.

The state provided $25-million for this year's camps. Districts are given leeway to create their own methods of instruction, but the Education Department expects them to cover several areas, including fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

The Pinellas camps run from 8 a.m. until noon. Two teachers are assigned to each classroom, overseeing tightly structured segments in which they read aloud to the students and engage them in word puzzles to teach them about letter combinations. They gauge the children's abilities by listening to them read.

After the students leave, the teachers spend an hour with district reading trainers learning new strategies and preparing for the next day.

"This schedule is intense," said Sue Casto, a former classroom teacher who works as a reading trainer. "It's jam-packed. The state has mandated all these pieces that have to fit into summer school."

Among the pieces, Casto said, are phonemic awareness, or the ability to notice, think about and work with individual sounds and spoken words; phonics, the understanding that there is a relationship between the sounds of the 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 children must know to communicate; and comprehension, or making sense of the words.

Children often can read words but fail to grasp their meaning, Casto said. They appear to be proficient readers but are unable to pass the FCAT because it requires them to answer questions about what they have read.

That's why the small group setting of the reading camp is so helpful, she said.

"You sit down side by side and listen to the student read, and you have a conversation with the student about what he's reading rather than falling back on a worksheet," she said.

Back in Kranzel and Micklo's classroom at Maximo Elementary, the clock inches toward noon. As children put materials away and fasten backpacks, Micklo asks them if they can tell her what they've learned so far at reading camp.

Eighteen pairs of eyes stare back at her.

"Have you learned anything about fluency?" she said.

Silence.

Reluctant to waste the last few precious minutes, she returns to the book she closed three hours and 20 minutes earlier and picks up where she left off.

"These are struggling readers," Kranzel said as the first group is dismissed. "That's why they're here. They're not into the whole school thing.

"Once they realize they're not alone, that everyone else is in the same boat, things will get better."

[Last modified May 31, 2005, 00:44:11]