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Story posted July 7, 2009

Results:
• 75% of participating low and non-readers passed the 2007 Texas state reading test after one year in the program

Many high school teachers and administrators think that reading instruction belongs in the lower grades. But according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007), only 31% of eighth graders read at or above the proficient level, meaning that many are entering high school unprepared for its advanced textbook reading and language requirements.

When Chapin High School in El Paso, TX, opened in 2000, about 25% of its students were nonreaders, and most of them came to the school after years of failure, completely unmotivated to become readers. Some of the freshmen were already parents, and because the school sits on the border between the United States and Mexico, we also had a large population of non-English speakers. We needed a way to reach those nonreaders and bring them up to grade level. Our solution? A two-year reading lab program.

Money, Money, Money
A reading lab and reading teachers are not traditionally accepted expenses for a high school, so we had to figure out how to fund the program. We were able to use federal and state compensatory education funds, including Title 1 funds, as well as some of the grant funds that our district, the El Paso Independent School District, had been awarded from Texas’s Ninth Grade Success Initiative.

Despite our best efforts, in the first year of operation, the reading lab did not have computers or books. Fortunately, training and creativity offset those difficulties. Every year since we have added resources, including computers, software, and additional staff.

Identifying Struggling Readers
At any given time, between 120 and 180 students are assigned to the lab. Most of them fall into one of two categories: students who struggle because they read below grade level or students who struggle because of vision problems.

Taking the Test
We tried a number of ways to pinpoint at-risk readers for the lab, such as asking for referrals from middle school reading teachers and sifting through the previous year’s state testing data. But we found that we lacked test data for students who attended middle schools outside of traditional feeder schools.

As a result, we now administer the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test to all incoming ninth graders. Those who read more than two years below grade level are assigned to the reading lab’s two-year program.

Perfect Vision
Six years ago, we arranged to take four students to an optometrist to find out whether or not they needed glasses. There, one young man was found to be suffering from binocular dysfunction. That meant that although he could comfortably view far-off objects, his eyes could not properly work together to perceive very close items, such as text on a page. The doctor recommended prism exercises to correct his condition, and after six weeks he improved so much that he was able to pass all future graduation credit requirements as well as the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

His results made us wonder how many of our nonreading students suffered from binocular dysfunction or simply needed glasses. So for the past four years, our reading program has hired a local optometrist to set up an examination room in the library to provide vision tests to all at-risk students who have parental permission.

We raised funds for the doctor by writing letters to potential donors, and as of this writing, we have raised approximately $9,000. We also reduced the optometrist’s billable time by having the reading lab’s monitor conduct half of the eye testing.

Support and Creativity
Often students are initially negative about being required to participate in the reading lab. Because they do not read well, they like to think that reading is not important. The reading teachers provide the support the students need to accept that increasing reading skills can make every other aspect of school more enjoyable and that such an improvement is possible. The teachers spend a lot of time ensuring that students understand that their lack of reading ability is in no way connected to their intelligence. So that students can see how the program could change their lives, they have a chance to meet or hear about individuals who have completed the program.

Because a reading program is not a traditional component of high school, we have been able to experiment. One major example of our experimentation is the physical lab itself, which covers two classroom spaces: one half of the lab is a regular computer lab, and the other half contains throw rugs, curtains, bookcases filled with books, and round tables.

In addition, the school has the autonomy to develop innovative lessons, such as a unit on human trafficking and the rights of women in which students read authorize lab reading material that others might find controversial, such as Sold by Patricia McCormick, a novel about a young Nepalese girl who is sold in a brothel in Calcutta, supplemented with the award-winning documentary Born into Brothels. Such units encourage the students to look at the rest of the world as neighbors. We are careful to obtain parental permission before allowing the students access to controversial material.

Another unusual step that we have taken in our reading program involves instructional software. In the 2006-07 school year, we agreed to participate in a three-year study that a company called MindPlay and the University of Arizona were conducting on older students’ responses to the virtual reading specialist and speech pathologist embedded within MindPlay’s My Reading Coach instructional software.

The first post-test revealed that students answered questions correctly but were only able to complete half of the test in the allotted time, indicating difficulties with fluency. So we acquired MindPlay’s FLRT, a fluency tool that increases students’ silent reading speed, for the second year of the study.

After two years with the program, we opted to require all reading lab students to use the software in 45-minute blocks. The remaining 45 minutes is used for other learning and relationship-building activities.

The reading teachers have been amazed at the improvement of their at-risk reading students. For example, a freshman who came into the program reading at a 6th-grade level and a rate of 125 words a minute improved his performance in one semester to reading 330 words per minute at the 11th-grade level. Overall, 75% of last year’s reading lab students finished the software and passed the state-mandated assessment and left the reading lab program at the end of their first year of the program. In addition, some students’ spring 2007 state-mandated test results shows that “added value” increases between their anticipated scores (on the basis of past test scores) and their actual scores were as much as 500 points.

Keys to Success
In 2008, we presented our program and its successes to other schools across the Southwest. A Texas Education Agency official and two high schools have done site visits to see firsthand what we have done.

Chapin’s two-year reading program was developed without a blueprint, as are most similar endeavors. We have found that when schools develop programs on their own, the most important moves that a principal can make are hiring excellent and dedicated staff members and then giving them creative freedom. This two-way relationship—reading teachers who passionately believe in the importance of a reading program at the high school level and administrators who allow the reading teachers to use their imagination, drive and energy to create their own program—is key to Chapin’s success, providing reading students with the consistency and support they need to succeed.

Reference:
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2007). Percentage of eighth-graders at or above basic was higher in 2007 than in 1992 and 2005. The nation’s report card. Retrieved December 28, 2008, from http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2007/r0003.asp?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1#chart

For additional information, please contact:
Nancy M. Booth
High School Reading Teacher, Chapin High School
nmbooth@episd.org  

Carla L. Gonzales
Principal, Chapin High School
clgonzal@episd.org  

This story came to LFA's attention after being published in the print edition of NASSP's May 2009 High School Edition of Principal Leadership magazine.

Story adapted with permission of NASSP from Nancy M. Booth and Carla L. Gonzales’ article Two Years to Big Reading Gains in Principal Leadership, High School Edition, May 2009

Copyright (2009) National Association of Secondary School Principals. For more information on NASSP products and services to promote excellence in middle level and high school leadership, visit http://www.principals.org/.