Teaching Reading: Effective Schools, Accomplished Teachers (Center for Improvement of Early Reading)

420 Pages·2002·19.92 MB·English

by  Barbara M. Taylor

TEACHING READING

EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS,
ACCOMPLISHED TEACHERS
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TEACHING READING

EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS,
ACCOMPLISHED TEACHERS
Edited by
Barbara M. Taylor
P. David Pearson
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2002 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form,
by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without
prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Teaching reading : effective schools, accomplished teachers / edited by
Barbara M. Taylor, R David Pearson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4133-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8058-4134-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Reading (Elementary)—United States—Case studies. 2. School
improvement programs—United States—Case studies. 3. Effective
teaching—United States—Case studies. I. Taylor, Barbara M., 1950­
II. Pearson, P. David.
LB1573.T3895 2002
372.4—dc21
2001033987

CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free
paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface xi
Part I: Large Scale Studies
1 Effective Schools and Accomplished Teachers: Lessons About 3
Primary-Grade Reading Instruction in Low-Income Schools
Barbara M. Taylor, P. David Pearson, Kathleen Clark,
and Sharon Walpole
2 Exemplary First-Grade Teaching 73
Michael Pressky, Ruth Wharton-McDonald, Lisa M. Raphael,
Kristen Bogner, and Alysia Roehrig
3 High-Performing, High-Poverty, Urban Elementary Schools 89
Joseph F Johnson, Jr.
4 Literacy in Rural Vermont: Lessons From Schools Where 115
Children Succeed
Jim Mosenthal, Marjorie Lipson, Susan Sortino, Barbara Russ,
and Jane Mekkelsen
5 Effective Practices for Assessing Young Readers 141
Scott G. Paris, Alison H. Paris, and Robert D. Carpenter
Part II: School Case Studies
6 Sunnyside Elementary School, Mounds View, Minnesota 163
Barbara M. Taylor and Ceil Critchley
1 Rocky Mountain Elementary School, Longmont, Colorado 179
Jackalyn Colt and Rebecca Mills
8 Stevenson Elementary: Schoolwide Success 199
Sharon Walpole
v
vi CONTENTS
9 Scott Elementary School: Home Grown School 217
Improvement in the Flesh
Glenda Breaux, Jennifer Danridge, and P. David Pearson
10 Serna Elementary School 237
Martha A. Adler
11 In Pursuit of Academic Excellence: The Story of Gladys 261
Noon Spellman Elementary
Pamela A. Smith, Joseph E. Johnson, Jr., and Brent Jones
Part III: Teacher Case Studies
12 Highly Accomplished Primary Grade Teachers 279
in Effective Schools
Barbara M. Taylor
13 A Case Study of Exemplary Practice in Fourth Grade 289
Leslie Mandel Morrow with Gregory Wamsley, Kimberly Duhammel,
and Nancy Fittipaldi
14 Scientific Literacy and Diverse Learners: Supporting 309
the Acquisition of Disciplinary Ways of Knowing
in Inclusion Classrooms
Carol Sue Englert and KaiLonnie Dunsmore
15 Bilingual Teachers Speak About the Literacy Instruction 335
of Bilingual Latino Students
Rosalinda Barrera and Robert T. Jimenez
Part IV: Syntheses Across Cases
16 Research'Supported Characteristics of Teachers 361
and Schools That Promote Reading Achievement
Barbara M. Taylor, Michael Pressley, and P. David Pearson
17 Beating the Odds in Literacy Education: Not the "Betting 375
on" but the Bettering of" Schools and Teachers?
Gerald G. Duffy and James V Hoffman
Author Index 389
Subject Index 395
Foreword
Steven A. Stahl
CIERA / The University of Georgia
This book tells the stories of a select group of schools and teachers, those who
"beat the odds." Many of these schools serve a high proportion of children in
poverty, generally defined as a proportion of children in the school eligible for
free or reduced cost lunch, who have average or better levels of achievement.
These are not the only schools that have reached this level, but for every school
that has beat the odds, there are, unfortunately, many that have succumbed to
them. Although the teachers in this book do teach in a variety of settings, we
worry most about children of poverty.
Many of the schools and teachers chronicled in this book are associated with
the CIERA School Change project, directed by Barbara Taylor and R David
Pearson. The goals of this project are, first, to identify characteristics of schools
that beat the odds, and, later, to work with other schools so that they, too, can
help children of poverty reach average or above levels of reading achievement.
Other chapters are associated with the studies of effective first-grade teachers
by Michael Pressley, Leslie Morrow, Cathy Collins Block, and their many col'
leagues. This project looked at the characteristics of effective first-grade teach­
ing, regardless of the student population. Joseph Johnson, Jr., examines
high-performing inner-city schools and James Mosenthal and his colleagues ex­
amine high-performing rural schools. These four chapters present complimen­
tary, yet slightly different, perspectives on successful schools and effective
teaching. Paris and his colleagues' chapter on assessment spotlights this impor­
tant component of school reform, drawing on the teachers from the School
Change project.
These are not the first studies that have looked at effective schools and ac­
complished teachers—nor will they be the last. Studies in this line of research
have appeared since the 1970s, since Weber (1983), who found four schools
that succeeded over a long term in educating the children of poverty who at­
vii
viii FOREWORD
tended them. He found a number of characteristics common to those
schools—strong instructional leadership, high expectations for achievement,
good atmosphere, strong emphasis on reading, additional reading personnel,
use of phonics, individualization, and careful evaluation of student progress.
Many of these features characterize the schools profiled in this volume as well.
In education, we tend to examine the relations between individual charac­
teristics (phonological awareness, dialect, and so on) and achievement. This
emphasis may be misplaced.A meta-analysis of the effects of poverty found that
the mean correlation between SES and achievement was 0.68, when the school
was the unit of analysis (White, 1982). The same studies found that the mean
correlation between SES and achievement was considerably lower, 0.23, when
the individual was the unit of analysis. Thus, the effects of schools serving large
numbers of children of poverty is just about three times as great as the effects of
poverty alone on achievement. This suggests that there is something about
schools with a lot of poor children that inhibits children's achievement. More
optimistic are the findings of Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, and Hemphill
(1991) who examined children of poverty who succeeded in school. They found
that, although it is best that children have a strong home literacy background
and good instruction, good instruction by itself can overcome the effects of a
weak home literacy background. In other words, if we want to solve problems in
education, we need to look at schooling.
Weber (1983) concluded, in a radical statement that rings its challenge to
the present day, "the failure in beginning reading typical of inner-city schools is
not the fault of the children or their background—but of the schools" (p. 547).
That is, if children of poverty can succeed in these schools, then why are they
failing elsewhere, and what can we do to provide similar experiences for all chil­
dren everywhere?
One commonality in approach taken by the schools in this book do not try to
"fix" the child, by either "blaming the victim" or "embracing the victim." By
concentrating on what schools and teachers can do to help children achieve,
the responsibility is placed on the teacher, rather than on the child or his parent.
I find that many schools who are failing to teach their children blame the par­
ents for their lack of support. This seems to be a characteristic of schools that are
not working. The schools in this book reach out to parents, but do so not to "fix"
the home, but out of a shared commitment to the child's education.
Another commonality of approach is a belief that school change must grow
from within, rather than be imposed from without. We have tried a number of
approaches to imposing externally developed comprehensive school reform
models on schools. The results of these external models are mixed. For example,
FOREWORD ix
Success for All has had mixed success (Madden, Slavin, Wasik, & Dolan, 1997;
Venezky, 1998). Although Success for All must be voted for by 75% of the fac­
ulty, there is minimal flexibility in implementing it. The comprehensive ap­
proach is one route to school improvement, one that might be useful for many
schools. But many other schools might bristle under the structure imposed from
without (see Elmore, Peterson, & McCarthey, 1996).
Another strength of the book is that it is research based on observations and
data rather than on politics. The No Excuses project (Carter, 2000) is another
attempt to look at inner city schools that have high levels of achievement. This
was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and its findings—use of continual
assessment for diagnostic purposes, the failure of "progressive education" espe­
cially for inner-city children, making parents responsible for their children's
learning, the need to re-educate teachers to make up for poor teacher train-
ing—reflect its sponsor's conservative agenda. In research of this type, one's
perspective will color one's findings. Quality research, such as that presented in
this volume, generally pushes against one's predispositions, to reflect on both
one's biases and what one observes, to truly understand the setting.
Although academics will read this book, I see this book being more useful to
teachers working together in a school. As Taylor and Pearson point out, it would
be useful for teachers to read each chapter as a self-study group, discuss what
characteristics their school has and how those characteristics reveal them­
selves, and what their school is missing and how it can attain those characteris­
tics. It is a wonderful opportunity for thoughtful reflection about how each of
these schools is like or not like my school. The schools in this book are urban
and rural and suburban; poor and middle class, all across the country. This book
does not tell teachers and schools how to be schools that "beat the odds." In­
stead, it is like a rack of dresses or suits in a department store. This is not a "one
size fits all" rack. Some fit; others do not. Some flatter; others do not. Some may
need a little alteration, letting out the hem, shortening the trousers. The only
way one can choose is to try them on. But there has to be a model to fit each
teacher and each school. As Ladson-Billings (1996) pointed out, successful
teachers can use a number of different teaching styles and philosophies.
Schools have their own character; their own ecology. Schools are affected by
the teaching staff, by the children in the schools, by the principal or instruc­
tional leader, and by district and state mandates. Reform has to respect that
ecology. But at the same time there are general principles that should work over
all different settings. In this volume, some general principles are laid out in the
first section; the stories of particular schools and teachers in the second and
third sections, followed by a summation. One cannot understand fully the gen­