HOUSTON – There have been a lot of changes since the state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles took over the Houston Independent School District and introduced the NES model to several campuses.
Since announcing more underperforming schools will join NES next school year, KPRC 2 wanted to ensure parents and students were aware of the differences between NES and regular HISD campuses.
NES, which stands for New Education System, has introduced several new courses to HISD students. Last week, we informed you about DYAD Specialty Classes, which help students develop life skills through various categories including fitness, gardening, music and dance.
Now, this week we are going deeper into the classroom, learning more about a class set to help students learn about the relationship between letters and sounds, and language comprehension, which teaches students what those sounds mean.
What is the science of reading?
When we talk about the science of reading, we’re looking at teaching methods that focus on phonics. You know, that whole sounding-out-words thing for kids.
But hey, it’s not all cut and dry, say literacy experts. They break it down into five key elements for learning to read, and phonics is just one of them. There’s also stuff like understanding rhymes, reading smoothly, getting a bigger vocabulary, and really getting what you’re reading.
Experts reckon that helping kids nail down all five pillars is the way to build strong readers.
“It’s the science behind how people learn how to read, like the best way to do it. Basically, like learning letter sounds and word sounds and putting them together,” said seventh grade Science of Learning teacher at Fleming Middle School Regina Cooper. “In the beginning, it was about making sure that students had access to a variety of different texts. We were building a whole lot of background knowledge. Now, we’re kind of honing in on certain things like vocabulary so we make predictions about texts and we talk about connections between texts.”
Cooper, like many teachers, expressed that the beginning of the school year started off bumpy at NES campuses. She said moving from another district to the unknown made her question her decision... at first.
But now, several months into the new school year, she said things are going smoother and the curriculum has gotten stronger and appears to be impacting the Fleming students.
“Students are determined. They’re like, the next time I take a test that looks like this, instead of getting a 70, I want to get a 90. So they set a goal for themselves. It doesn’t even have anything to do with me at this point because they’re trying to beat their last score, so they’re only in competition with themselves. I never put them against each other, but they know that the only way that they are going to grow is if they’re here and they’re focused and they actually put in the work, which most of them are doing,” Cooper said.
What does the curriculum look like? Is it working?
“In the beginning, it was about making sure that students had access to a variety of different texts. Here’s the thing I have learned over time, if students don’t have any background knowledge, if they don’t know enough stuff, it doesn’t matter how many words they know if they don’t know how to use them,” Cooper explained. “So, in the beginning, we were building a whole lot of background knowledge like, ‘Let’s read this text, let’s talk about this topic or this idea that you may not have ever even thought about in your life.’ And then, now that you have that background knowledge, we can build on that because I can’t ask a student to tell me about cricket if they’ve never played cricket. I can’t ask somebody to tell me about baseball if they’ve never played it or they have never read about it or even seen a game. So you build background knowledge first, right? Expose them to as many, opportunities to read different texts as possible. And now we’re kind of honing in on certain things like vocabulary. We make predictions about texts, we talk about connections between texts. I’m going to give you this text. We looked at two different texts today and tomorrow. Will I make those connections? Like how are they similar? How are they different? We pull out the vocabulary words that kids are maybe not familiar with, right? So maybe I’ll give them four words.”
According to Cooper, the students are learning what fluent reading sounds like so they can hopefully mimic it in the future.
“Besides learning letters and sounds and phonemes and putting them together, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are part of that. There are five parts to science and reading and fluency is right in the middle.
Is Science of Reading offered to everyone?
Science of Reading is only offered to students who have not mastered their past reading tests or classes last year. It’s designed to be a booster for students who may need an extra hand with reading.
“If seventh graders mastered their STARR reading test last year, they don’t really need this class. Even though I have a few who passed who are in this group, it only serves as a booster. So now you met standards, but I bet I can get you to master it. I bet you I can. And so then we discuss those things in here as well. Like how can we get to mastery? So not only just teaching these things, but we also have tests in here. And then after our test, which we had yesterday, we looked at our growth. So each student has a tracker in their notebook. Students know exactly how they scored, and what they missed, and what skill they need to practice on and what skill they’ve mastered,” Cooper explained.
Is the Science of Reading new to HISD?
Cooper said this is the first she’s heard of the Science of Reading method.
“It’s always been English language Arts and reading in one class. Those teachers who teach that, I used to be one, are expected to cover all of those things in just 90 minutes a day. It is really difficult to do everything in just that small amount of time,” Cooper explained. “ I know that something is happening here that’s creating a positive change at this school for these students right now because that’s where I am. I don’t know about other schools. I don’t know what they’re doing over there, but I can appreciate what’s happening here because I can see that students are growing.”