by Pat Kossan (The Arizona Republic, May. 20, 2004)

Just nine months ago, students in 63 Arizona schools had some of the worst reading scores in the state.

Now reading readiness for these kindergartners has soared, aided by a federal grant that put some of the best reading programs in the country into schools with the poorest track records.

In August, only 9 percent of students entering full-day kindergarten at the 63 schools matched their peers nationwide in pre-reading skills; nearly 60 percent of the kids were so far behind they needed extra and intensive teaching.

As the school year ends, more than half of these same kindergartners have reached grade level and are ready for first grade.

The results were not as dramatic for half-day kindergarten students but still were impressive. Students working at grade level jumped from 8 percent at the beginning of the year to 40 percent in May.

"It's very compelling data in support of full-day kindergarten," Arizona schools chief Tom Horne said. "Added time for quality reading instruction shows results."

The happy news for kindergartners was tempered by very small gains by first-, second- and third-graders. Horne said the majority of these older students came into their classes further behind in reading skills, requiring teachers to bring them up two grade levels in one year. Progress among the older students at the 63 schools also was uneven, with some schools doing better than others, indicating some reading teachers will need more training.

Carrie Hancock, state testing coordinator for the new reading program, speculated that older learners were slower to improve because they already had gaps in their reading skills, such as knowing how each letter sounds or how they combine and blend into words. That leaves them struggling to sound out each word and unable to remember what the first part of the sentence said by the time they reach the end.

"They're working so hard on decoding, they don't understand what they're reading," Hancock said.

One part of the program is to team teachers and parents.

Despite a job and five children, Derrick Lee said he finds about 15 to 20 minutes each night to help his kindergartner, Deon.

"He brings work home steadily and he knows what he has to do and jumps right in," said Lee, who can't remember his three older kids working on homework until the second grade.

Federal officials promised Arizona $110 million over the next six years to help the state's poorest students learn to read by third grade. Here's what the federal grant money is doing for the schools:


• Purchased one of several coordinated kindergarten-through-third-grade reading programs that use the latest teaching methods.


• Trained teachers in the programs and hired campus reading coaches to help sharpen teaching skills and ensure teachers were working as a team.


• Allowed state officials to use the same national testing tool at all 63 schools to measure student-reading skills in each grade before, during and after the school year.

This coming year, the schools will examine where student skills remain weak and use part of their grant money to buy extra teaching materials aimed at ensuring all kids keep up.

Early readers at Maxine O. Bush Elementary School haven't been doing well, part of the reason why the state has ranked the south Phoenix school "underperforming" two years in a row. After the first year in the new reading program that the federal grant provided, 86 percent of Bush's full-day kindergartners have grade-level language skills or above and are ready for first grade.

Walsdorf Jenneford, principal at Bush for two years, said the reading program's biggest contribution has been to require teachers to share information about teaching and students, and work as a team.

"It bridged a gap in our instruction," Jenneford said, although some teachers were very skeptical about the scripted reading program and worried it would hurt their individual style of teaching. That changed, Jenneford said, when testing showed that kids were learning.

Bush kindergarten teacher Rosalind Horace said it's not the program, it's the teachers and parents who make a difference in what children learn.

Reach the reporter at pat.kossan@arizonarepublic.com.