The York County School Division’s latest approach to elementary literacy is running with the old adage that good reading begets good writing.
Beginning this school year, YCSD is using a new literacy education model for kindergarten through fifth grade — one that emphasizes the connections between reading, writing and word study.
YCSD Director of Elementary Instruction Candi Skinner said the school division previously used separate models for teaching elementary reading and writing. But reading and writing are naturally connected, and Skinner said it made sense to teach them as such.
One of the key strategies used in this more holistic approach, Skinner said, is “visualization.” Students are taught to visualize their reading — to create mental pictures of the scenes described by the words on the page. This approach, according to Skinner, engages students with the reading while helping students craft their writing in a way that allows readers to visualize the prose.
“It’s really helping students see that reading and writing are not separate,” Skinner said.
Beyond its emphasis on strategies like visualization, Skinner said the new model improved on the previous version in other ways. The older reading and writing models, developed in 2001 and 2006, respectively, used a top-down and material-driven approach. Skinner said this system did not always maximize student potential because students of differing abilities did not have lessons specialized for them.
The new model provides more structure for teachers while increasing flexibility for students. The previous model provided ideas for teachers to use in the classroom, but those ideas were vague. Skinner said the new model establishes a clearer timeline for teachers, provides more guidance for specific instruction and creates more structure in the classroom. It also increases the classroom minutes dedicated to reading, writing and word study to 150 minutes for kindergarten through second-grade students and 120 minutes for third- through fifth-grade students.
“We’re shifting from a teacher-directed and programmatic approach to a more student-centered one,” Instructional Specialist Laura Burton said. “We do not want our materials to direct our instruction. We want our model to direct our instruction.”
Under the new model, greater emphasis is placed on student choice. Skinner said research done by the district indicated students were more engaged when they have the choice of reading material that is more meaningful to them.
“We’re teaching students, not a specific reading program,” Skinner said.
This amounts to a strategy of the “gradual release of responsibility.” The idea is teachers provide students with the strategies for more engaged reading and writing. The students use those strategies in their own reading and writing, and as they become more familiar with them, teachers gradually allow the students greater independence. Eventually, teachers become more like guides, helping students use and improve the skills and strategies they have already learned.
Skinner said this approach allowed for greater individualization from student to student. Students who excel in their courses will be encouraged to challenge themselves with higher level material. Students who are struggling will have a more sustained teacher presence helping them reach that ultimate state of reading and writing proficiency.
“The whole goal of the teacher is to allow the student to become independent,” Skinner said. “We want to teach a strategy, have the teacher become a guide, and then have the student use it independently.”
The new model is the result of more than a year’s worth of work. The school board made a new literacy model part of the division’s strategic plan in January 2013, and the committee tasked with its development shared the results with teachers in June 2014. Skinner said the ultimate goal is to expand the new literacy model to include secondary students.
In the meantime, Skinner said other districts have been impressed by the new YCSD model. Administrators were invited to present it at a meeting of the Virginia School Board Association.
“After that,” Skinner said, “a few superintendents came up to us and asked if they could have copies.”
