Hays CISD is streamlining its literacy curriculum for elementary students in an effort to improve their reading and writing skills before they reach the third grade.
By setting aside 30 minutes a day with a new phonics program, Hays CISD hopes teachers can instill the reading and writing skills elementary students need to improve in their classes and score well on state standardized tests.
The district also hired three full-time district literacy specialists to help students and teachers reach their literacy goals.
On Sept. 17, the Hays CISD Board of Trustees approved a $291,246 purchase of the McGraw-Hill Open Court Phonics program, which will be taught to students in Kindergarten to 2nd grade district-wide. The district has always taught phonics lessons, but is now streamlining the way these skills are taught as a part of Superintendent Eric Wright’s goal to improve district literacy rates.
During the district’s scheduled time with the Open Court program, which can range from 30 to 45 minutes, teachers spend time reading to students, working on spelling and word comprehension and helping students learn to write about what they read. The McGraw-Hill program provides educators with the curriculum they need so teachers do not have to write their own curriculum.
The district also hired three full-time district literacy specialists to help students and teachers reach their literacy goals. Mandy Taylor, district literacy specialist, taught in Hays County for 20 years before taking a position within the district’s administration.
“Even in just the first four weeks of school, I’ve been able to be in a lot of classrooms,” Taylor said. “Our teachers have done a fantastic job of establishing classroom libraries and setting up a culture of reading. For our (youngest) learners, we just want to give them the tools they need to be successful.”
The years before a student enters the third grade are the most imperative toward their learning of reading and writing skills, said Taylor. The district aims to make children literate in reading and writing as early as possible.
HCISD Chief Communications Officer Tim Savoy said district officials want to see students improve on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests each year and bettering the student’s literacy rates is the way to do that. Savoy said he hopes improved reading and writing skills will benefit students in all of their courses, including math and science.
“We know that if a child is not reading at grade-level by the third grade, then that student will begin to see their problems grow and grow if it is not corrected,” Savoy said.
The program comes with a separate course of action for English Language Learners (ELL), whose first language is Spanish.
“We do offer this in Spanish,” said HCISD Deputy Academic Officer Jennifer Garcia “(Those students) follow a different phonics program.”
District literacy specialists will be responsible for assessing the impact of the program toward the end of the 2018-19 academic year.
The specialists will receive surveys from teachers and look at data including results of a developmental reading assessment.
