The little girl on the screen echoed every word her mother said as she prepared her breakfast.
“Oatmeal! Blueberries! Strawberries!”
The girl was just 2 years old, so she couldn’t quite say the words just right, “strawberries” becoming something like “staw-bewwies.” But it was the effort that counted, mom making sure to talk through what she was doing and her daughter repeating, helping to grow the young girl’s vocabulary and speech.
Panelists discuss the science of reading at a showing of the movie “The Right to Read” at the Akron-Summit County Public Library on Tuesday in downtown Akron. From left, David James, executive director, Summit Educational Initiative; Pam Kennedy, early literacy specialist, State Support Team Region 8; Shelley Houser, director of the Center for Literacy, University of Akron; and LaMonica Davis, principal, Helen Arnold CLC.
The girl and her mother were part of a documentary, “The Right to Read,” shown at the Akron-Summit County Public Library’s Main Library on Tuesday that highlighted the problem of low literacy rates across the country. It was followed by a panel discussion about literacy in Summit County and Ohio.
Ohio is just a year into its mandate for school districts to use an early literacy curriculum based on what’s known as the “science of reading,” based on the science of how the brain learns to read. Teachers must now also go through training on the science of reading.
“This isn’t a pendulum slipping back and forth,” Pam Kennedy, an early literacy specialist with the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, said. “This is what we know, from over 50 years, how the brain learns to read.”
The Ohio legislature approved Gov. Mike DeWine’s science of reading mandate as part of the most recent two-year budget, providing $64 million for districts that weren’t already using a curriculum approved by the state to buy new materials. Districts that had purchased compliant materials within the last school year before the mandate went into effect were also reimbursed for those costs. All districts received some money, but those without science of reading programs received more. They have to implement the new materials this school year.
The University of Akron has been assisting districts in that transition, and helping those that were already using the science of reading to deepen their knowledge of it and expand practices in the classroom.
Shelley Houser, the director of the University of Akron’s Center for Literacy, said the university is committed to making sure future teachers are set up for success to teach reading through the newly mandated approach, no matter which curriculum a district chooses to use.
“Our pre-service teachers are getting very well educated in using science of reading to support what they need to do to work with the children they will encounter in their pre-service teaching opportunities … and as they go forward,” she said.
The science of reading has five components: phonemic awareness, or the sounds letters make; phonics, matching the letters and sounds and understanding what happens when they are combined; vocabulary, building students’ knowledge of words; fluency, students being able to read full words and sentences; and comprehension, being able to read for meaning.
Science of reading pushes that students have to be able to attack the word, or “decode” it using skills they know, without guessing just based on pictures or the first letter of the word.
LaMonica Davis, the principal of Helen Arnold CLC in Akron Public Schools, talked about her school being an early adopter of the science of reading in Akron, and the transformation it led to in her school, which was once ranked in the bottom 5% in the state and under state oversight, but climbed its way out of both.
Beyond just academic growth, she said, attendance increased because kids liked coming to school, and were better behaved when they were there.
“There were behaviors because they couldn’t read,” she said. “If I can’t read, what’s the next thing to do? Just act up.”
She credited her fellow panelist, former APS Superintendent David James, for letting her school run with the science of reading.
James, now the head of the Summit Education Initiative, said it was all about thinking outside the box and being willing to try something new.
James noted that across Summit County, in 2024 on the Ohio state test, 67% of fourth graders tested proficient in reading. In eighth grade, though, the number drops to 51% who are reading on grade level.
“That’s a problem we have to tackle if they’re going to have success later on,” he said.
Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Film, panel show importance of science of reading in Summit County