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hot off the presses a list of text books and learn to read materials for Wisconsin schools has been released awaiting approval by the legislature, which could come Monday. This list comes as a result of a new bipartisan law called act 20, which mandates science of reading and phonics instruction instead of
balanced literacy, which includes something called three queuing, now expressly prohibited statewide testing in the third through eighth grade shows just under 40% of students are proficient in reading, much lower than that in Green Bay and Milwaukee.
In efforts to boost skills along with approved lesson plans, the new law requires enhanced testing, literacy coaches and interventions for students at risk of not being able to read.
It comes with $50 million in grants for schools to purchase approved curriculum and other costs.
A member of the council tasked with choosing the approved curriculum joins us to describe more about changes coming to Wisconsin classrooms.
Amy McGovern is associate director of continuous school improvement and literacy reading specialist for 22 districts in northern Wisconsin. She joins us now and Amy thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me. So we mentioned something called the three queuing method of reading instruction, which is now outlawed. It includes using pictures. I understand, for example, to help students understand what the words are saying instead of the use of phonics or sounding
words. I guess three queuing has failed our students.
Well, I would say that three queuing.
Really, you mentioned that 40% of the students are proficient in Wisconsin, and that's about the number of students who three queuing is really designed to work well for the kids who are not hardwired to have a hard time learning to read.
So I would argue there's probably a relationship between those two things.
When we overemphasize using.
Looking at the picture or taking our eyes off the word students are less likely to be able they're slowing down their ability to learn to read so that gets in the way of their progress and then once they get past their grade and they're not reading well.
It's harder to close the gap. It takes longer. Super interesting. So you were among the panel of educators who chose the list of 11 early literacy instructional materials that schools consume news.
Will this be a new way of teaching children to read for teachers across the state?
Well, the absence of three queuing will definitely make an impact for a lot of students.
And the curriculum resources are designed to the ones that the console selected really met a high bar of quality.
And no, no resource is going to be perfect, of course, and so all those other things you factored in with training and leadership support all matter.
But the actual design of the curriculum that we selected is for more likely to produce readers than some of the others that weren't selected by the console.
So you spoke to all those other measures and including the approved teaching methods more testing literacy coaching training.
Can schools handle this load though? Do teachers have time for all of this?
That's a great question. And I would say that it's not on the teachers plate to determine how the time is used. It's on the administrators plate.
They need to balance that for the teachers. And there is actually part of act 20 is leadership and literacy training to help them set up a system that supports this rollout.
So if it's done well, yes, but there has to be support from those administrators. So we're checking the teachers really. Yeah.
So we mentioned that the bill calls for $50 million in grants for school districts. How far will that go?
They're not far enough. Some of that money is being used for the director and for the coaches. And now I understand some of it's been set aside for professional learning for teachers.
So that leaves a small amount that will be allocated for the curricular resources. But something is better than nothing and who knows where this will lead us.
It's hard to say exactly how far it will go. Probably not far enough in the schools that in the districts that you work with.
What are the reactions to this change?
I think there's some anxiety about the timeline.
A lot of the schools that I work with are excited about the shift.
They recognize the need for change and those that might still be holding on to past practices are realizing that they might need to make some changes to make progress.
But there is anxiety about the timeline because we it's supposed to start next fall and there is a bill that might delay the implementation of act 20 until the middle of the year, which would be helpful for districts to get their feet under them with the training that's required.
How difficult is it for teachers who specialize in reading and teaching children to read to see those kinds of test score numbers?
Well, I mean the teachers poor their heart and soul into helping their children learn to read their students are in to read.
So it's very disheartening when you feel like you're doing everything that you've been taught to do and it's not working.
So part of act 20 also addresses how universities approach the teaching of teachers so that we can then them into the field with the most up to date information.
What should parents and students expect in the classroom when all the provisions of the new reading law are rolled out?
Well, parents should expect to be notified much more quickly if their students are struggling because part of act 20 requires a reading readiness plan to be communicated with parents for any student that falls below the 25th percentile on that new test that's coming down the
pike. So I would imagine that parents will have greater communication with their school right from the start.
All right, that's that's good news. Amy McGovern. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Really interesting. Nicely done. No wonder you're a teacher of teachers.
I don't know if that's what you are, but I know you're a specialist and and run the school and continue a school improvement. So, yes, I am a teacher of teachers though.
This was doing that this morning. All right. Well, Amy, again, thank you very much.
Thank you. It was really an honor. I appreciate it.
Thank you. You too.