Develop your Expertise

Through our conversations with leaders shifting their literacy practices to better align to the reading research, one trend stood out: In the organizations furthest ahead in implementing these new practices, the senior leaders (CEOs, CAOs, Superintendents, etc.) had all pushed themselves to grapple with the reading research and interrogate their own data and systems to set a new vision for literacy instruction in their network.

Sharing Research and Resources to Start the Early Literacy Conversation with Leadership

At Nashville Classical Charter School, Emma Colonna, Managing Director of K-8 Humanities, focused on building content knowledge with her leadership team first. “There was a lot of research coming out on the science of reading. I ran into roadblocks because school leaders weren’t on the same page. There was a way things had always been done, so we needed to reset the vision,” she explains. When the Assistant Principal of K-2 moved into her role, they both enrolled in the Early Reading Training through the Tennessee Department of Education, which focuses on cognitive science and reading research that supports an evidence-based approach to literacy instruction. They had a “lightbulb moment” that led them to enroll all teachers and leaders in the training and to adapt their approach to their core curriculum and assessments through a science of reading lens. They applied these learnings to classroom instruction, saw results, and felt prepared to use this new knowledge to make changes to their school-wide literacy model.

In addition to professional learning opportunities offered by state education departments or outside providers, leaders began their journey in developing expertise by listening to podcasts, starting book clubs, and joining newsletters. Stephanie Bennetts, Chief Academic Officer at Blackstone Valley Prep shares, “I was a high school teacher; I didn’t know anything about teaching early literacy. I had a trusted literacy expert (my husband) connect me to people in the field. I read articles; I listened to podcasts. I believe in the importance of continuous learning and have been asking the right questions.”

Leaders stressed the importance of bringing everyone along on the learning journey. Crystal Lane, Managing Director of Schools at DREAM Charter Schools explains, “It was a change for everyone, no one had knowledge of the science of reading. Our lower literacy curriculum person was learning. Our CEO, Managing Director of Education Strategy and Data, CFO, teachers, and leaders…we did a lot of 1:1s to get them on board; we brought them into literacy design meetings. Once we had them in, everyone started bringing their own ideas into literacy sessions as well.”

Here are a few resources leaders have found helpful to get their teams started:

• Emily Hanford’s stories and podcast

• Know Better, Do Better: Teaching the Foundations So Every Child Can Read by David & Meredith Liben

• Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers by Louisa Moats

• The National Reading Panel Report: Practical Advice for Teachers by Tim Shanahan

• Carolyn Strom’s webinar “Cortex in the Classroom”

For more resources, see our research page here.

Partnering with Outside Experts to Inspire Change

DREAM Charter Schools’ leadership team knew they needed a change in their early literacy model, so they leveraged outside support to help them connect the research to their vision for change. They partnered with Lit, who led workshops with their leadership team on the science of reading. Lit also supported DREAM with planning, instructional walkthroughs, and building key systems to support leaders and teachers with successful implementation of research-based literacy instruction.“Lit explained how children learn to read through the use of clear logic and data. They also helped the team understand how many of our current leveled literacy practices were inequitable and did not support holistic reading development,” shares Crystal Lane.

At Mastery Charter Schools, the leadership team also partnered with literacy organizations to build leaders’ content knowledge. Mastery worked with Read by 4th and AIM Pathways to Proficient Reading to build understanding of the science of reading. “The approach was thorough, building a bridge between theory and practice, and there was a pre- and post-test to help you understand your learning,” Molly Getz, Deputy Chief Academic Officer K-12 Humanities, explains. The sessions helped literacy leaders build knowledge and a shared language of the reading research, which led to the team shifting many of their early literacy instructional practices.

Sharpening Understanding of Gaps and Create a Case for Change

For many leaders, the case for change was clear based on what they saw happening in their schools:

“As our kids were growing into middle school, we saw that the things we were doing were not translating into kids understanding authentic, complex texts.”

“Kids were guessing at words on assessments.”

“Our reading data wasn’t very good… everyone had the ‘animals’ strategies (eagle eye, stretchy snake) but they weren’t actually reading.”

At a similar inflection point and equipped with knowledge of the research, Mastery Charter Schools used data to better understand students’ early literacy development and make the case for a new assessment and curriculum. “Pre-pandemic, we noticed a discrepancy in our second grade measurements of F&P and students’ performance on state assessments…We used [the pandemic] as an opportunity to do change management and determine what was problematic about our current model, so we dug into the data to understand what was causing problems for students,” shares Molly Getz.

Through their learnings about the essential components of effective reading instruction, the leadership team realized that their current assessment suite did not adequately assess all foundational skills at the appropriate intervals. By adopting a research-aligned screener assessment, teachers and leaders had a clearer picture of student progress and where their curricular materials fell short: They discovered that students had gaps in phonemic awareness and fluency. "We learned how tests can be used to steer the ship first,” Getz explains. “[With the MAP Reading Fluency Assessment], we are equipped with a better understanding of the problems impacting our students and how to keep them on track with our literacy goals.”

As a result, Mastery added Heggerty, an evidence-based phonemic awareness curriculum, to their foundational skills block.

Below is an example report from the MAP Reading Fluency assessment that shows individual student scores for each subtest and whether students are below, approaching, meeting, or exceeding the grade-level benchmarks:

Fostering Transformation by Building Expertise

With a deep understanding of the research, education leaders can become empowered to drive transformative change in literacy. By championing knowledge and leveraging evidence-based approaches, leaders like you pave the way for equitable and effective literacy classrooms that prepare students for future success.