Virtual teacher

To help kids weak in reading, Pinellas schools pay big bucks for Read 180, a program that includes Ty, a hip virtual instructor.

By KELLY RYAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 7, 2000

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Michael DesRosiers reads during a summer-session class at Osceola Middle School.

SEMINOLE -- Under their teacher's watchful eye, a group of students hunched over a table and tried to find a story's main idea. Others wearing headphones read aloud to a computer that never overlooks a mistake.

In another corner of Angela Owens' cozy classroom at Osceola Middle School is the reading center. Right near the rocking chair and the comfy couch, Charisse Weaver sat on the floor with her nose in Crazy for Chocolate.

Charisse and her classmates are struggling readers who haven't responded to the old way of teaching reading, which often involved a class of 30 students reading the same book at the same pace.

This summer, they learned the Read 180 way. At the end of the six-week class, 10 of 18 students were better readers.

"I think the people that made the Read 180 program are very good," Charisse wrote on an evaluation. "They helped ever well almost every kid that don't know how to read and the kids that can't spell and the kids that can't sound words out."

The results came in this summer, and they were surprising.

Fourth-, eighth- and 10th-graders take the annual Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in reading. Across the state, fourth-graders did better, but eighth- and 10th-graders dropped slightly.

In Pinellas, eighth-graders beat the state average, despite a mystifying 10-point downturn. Tenth-graders simply held on to the 1999 score.

The mixed results had educators around Florida asking: What can we do to reach more kids?

The answer, Pinellas educators say, lies in a special set of reading materials, a computer and a hip, supportive video instructor named Ty.

Read 180 was introduced in 1999 in 12 Pinellas schools, three special education centers and four dropout prevention centers.

The program, developed by Vanderbilt University and first introduced in Orange County schools in 1994, combines independent reading, group instruction and individualized computer work so students can work at their own speed.

And then there's the technology that makes teachers ooh and ahh. The computer program spits out detailed reports on each student, tracking progress in spelling, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension and analytical skills.

Never before, educators say, have reading teachers known so much about each student -- so much that they can tailor their instruction, and the computer's, to meet each student's needs.

"For your students, it will probably be the first time they can't fall through the cracks," Jan Mickler, a district supervisor of secondary reading, told a group of teachers in Read 180 training this summer. "The computer tattles on them."

It cost more than $1-million for Pinellas County to launch the pilot program last year in 33 classrooms. When the 2000-2001 school year begins Aug. 23, Read 180 will be offered in 71 classrooms in 40 schools for $1-million more.

Nicholas Krege is just glad it was offered in his.

Read 180 students -- many unmotivated and inattentive -- are chosen to participate because they read below grade level. (The only exception is summer school, when some students read at or above grade level but take Read 180 because they failed a language arts class.)

Students are pulled out of their regular classrooms to spend 90 minutes in Read 180. Classes are limited to 15 students, and teachers are specially trained and selected.

At the beginning of the year, students take a computer test to determine their reading levels. Then they are given lists of suggested Read 180 books to use in class. The books are matched to their reading level to be challenging but not frustrating.

Class starts with the students working together. Then the class is divided into teams that rotate between three stations: the independent reading center, computer center (with five monitors) and small group instruction.

Read 180 didn't work quite right in its first year.

Many schools found that the computer software didn't work at all or worked only sporadically. Some schools abandoned the computers altogether and did the other parts of the curriculum, but Read 180 without computers is not really Read 180.

With the computers so spotty, Read 180 wasn't used the way it wasintended: every day, all year. Because of that, Mickler said, Pinellas doesn't have reliable districtwide data showing how well Read 180 works.

In the classrooms where the computer program worked at least part of the year, most students showed some improvement. Micklersaid other encouraging patterns emerged: Students who used to skip class didn't; students who hated reading reported trips to the library; and fewer students were written up for bad behavior.

In the 2000-01 school year, Mickler expects the district to collect data that justifies the program's cost.

"You are matching kids with texts," she said. "There's no way to know how each kid of 30 is doing. The beauty of this is the computer has a personal relationship with the student."

Owens' classroom is decorated with punctuation posters, student artwork and silk flowers. It buzzes with the sounds of students sounding out words, scratching pencils across paper and discussing characters and story plots.

In the reading center, some students giggle, yank each other's hair and stare off into space until Owens notices. Others quietly curl up on the couch or sit cross-legged on the floor reading the books they picked out.

It's the computer center that tantalizes the students, who shove others away when a classroom clock rings, signaling a new rotation. The computers, the software updated and fixed, worked right during summer school.

Students strap on headphones and watch videos about a subject, such as minting money. Then, using that background information, the students read a passage and take vocabulary, spelling and comprehension tests.

Every now and then, Ty, the virtual instructor, appears to encourage or congratulate students. The computer is the reason Nicholas Krege gives the program high marks.

"The computers were kind of fun because you got to interact with it," said Nicholas, who reads on grade level but improved his reading skills more than most other students in the class.

The computer is a perfectionist and doesn't let up on students who make mistakes.

One morning, Katelyn McGarry sat in front of her computer, sighing and punching in the same word over and over, all the way down the screen. She had gotten it wrong earlier, and the computer wanted to make sure she learned her lesson.

Owens frequently reads reports about her students' progress, seeing how long they take to complete computer assignments, how many words they are mastering and whether they are struggling with pronunciation.

If she sees that a student is breezing through his work, she can tweak his lessons to make the reading passages longer and harder.

"Ask yourself if you're achieving your goal," Owens, entering her fifth year of teaching, reminded the class. "If so, keep doing what you're doing."

At the beginning of the summer, eight students were reading below grade level. At the end, five were. Darline Collins was no longer one of them.

Darline said she has always liked to read, but just never tried before. With the frequent rotations and pace of the computer assignments, she said Read 180 gave her no choice but to keep up with her work.

Plus -- it was fun.

"It's cool," said Darline, who went from reading below-grade level to reading at grade level. "You learn a lot of words."

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