Ronda Fritz is an associate professor of education at Eastern Oregon University. JPR鈥檚 Jane Vaughan recently spoke with Fritz about how reading is taught, what鈥檚 not working and how the state could start to address the problem.
Jane Vaughan: Let's jump right into it. Why are Oregon's test scores so low? Is there a clear answer, or is it kind of complicated?
Ronda Fritz: I think it's very complicated. It just has many facets that have brought us to this place, including the assessment practices within the state and the that parents can initiate within their schools. So we don't really even know if we have a clear and representative group of assessment data that can give us that information. And then if we want to think about just the way reading has been taught over the years. And I think it's become a national 鈥� I don't think it, I know it's become a national topic, thanks to things like the podcast that have brought to light these methods that were used for decades that we know aren't best practices and that don't have evidence to support their use in order to get kids to be proficient readers. So that has been going on for a long time, and we just haven't been able to correct that quickly enough.
JV: And we'll talk about how we teach reading in Oregon in a sec, but just to make this clear, because I know some people think that test scores maybe aren't that important or maybe emphasize them less. How important are these test scores? What impacts does it have on kids if their test scores are low?
RF: One thing to think about in terms of those test scores is it's not as much about the individual kids, but about the health of the system. It's giving us a gauge of whether or not our education system is working for kids. And of course, the individual children are important, and that's who we're dealing with on the day to day basis. But we need those test scores to let us know if what we're doing is working, and it clearly is not.
JV: Your focus is on early literacy instruction. So tell me about how we teach reading in Oregon. How does that work?
RF: So I think that that also is a complicated question. The difference between how it is being taught in many places and how it should be taught is a pretty big chasm in many cases. And I think there's a lot of places that are trying to catch up and trying to do the right things, but the main premise of what we teach our pre-service teachers here at Eastern Oregon University and what I teach to in-service teachers that I do professional development with is this underlying idea that in order for kids to become proficient readers, they have to both be able to decode words, they have to do that, but they also have to have a really solid language development and really understand the language on a deep level in order for us to get them to reading comprehension. So it's word recognition times language comprehension to get to reading comprehension. And if one of those things is weak, then we're not going to see proficiency in reading comprehension, and I think the reason the scores are low could be a combination of both of those things. Perhaps we haven't done as well as we should in terms of teaching them how to crack the code, and we haven't done as well as we should to make sure that they have a wide breadth of knowledge and that they have a large and deep understanding of language.
JV: Okay, so you're saying that if one of those two pieces is not being focused on, then reading skills are going to suffer. Why are schools not teaching both of those two parts?
RF: I think it kind of goes back to that historical shift that happened where there was this focus on just really the language comprehension side and making sure that kids enjoyed literature and were exposed to lots of great literature. And so then decoding wasn't really addressed. It was addressed sort of as a side thing, not as something that needed specific attention. And then there were times when folks realized, Oh my goodness, we need to be teaching decoding. And so then the shift went more to just decoding, and we let the other pieces go. So I think figuring out how to train teachers and support teachers to use both of those sides of the " to ensure that we get to reading proficiency is what we're trying to do now. How do we address all aspects and make sure teachers are supported to address all aspects, and that means, Do they have the right tools in their hands to do that? Are we still emphasizing creating and building knowledge for kids? Are we emphasizing that they have to first crack the code? All of those things. That's what makes it complicated, because it isn't a simple answer, even though it's called the Simple View of Reading. It's very complex how we put that together within the system.
JV: Talking about teachers, that's one of the things I'm curious about, is how much of this problem is really falling into their laps. Are they maybe not well prepared for this? They maybe haven't received enough training? Are they newer teachers since COVID, they don't have enough experience? What's happening there?
RF: Well, I think that's a mixed bag, too. I think we do as educator preparation programs need to take some responsibility that there have been many, many years when we haven't prepared our candidates well, so they're going into schools with false ideas of how to teach reading or just really under-prepared and haven't had a good, solid foundation. So there is that piece. Yes, I think the teacher shortage has been part of the issue too, because we're bringing in teachers who have very little experience, maybe haven't even had an educator preparation program, so they're walking in with zero knowledge, and then just the lack of resources for districts to take that on, so there's those pieces. So yes, it falls into teachers' laps, but I think the onus needs to be on teacher preparation, but also on school administrators to make sure that we're providing the supports that teachers need, including training, including coaching, all of those things that will help them do well teaching reading because, as I said, it's not simple. It's a very complicated endeavor. And I think as the general public sees it, we all went to school. It seems like it should be something that's just easy, but it really isn't. It takes a very skilled practitioner to get the best results for kids.
JV: And you mentioned this idea of the Simple View of Reading and having those two parts. Is that a newer idea in terms of this history of teaching literacy, or why has it taken Oregon so long to implement what seems to be, you're saying, an effective way to teach reading?
RF: I believe, and I'll have to fact check this, but I think the Simple View of Reading came out, Gough and Tunmer are the researchers. I believe it was like 1979 [it was actually 1986]. So we are not talking about something new. We are talking about something that has been researched for decades. And it wasn't just Oregon that ignored the research. Nationwide, there has been a, it's just been all over that everyone has ignored that research and did what felt better. It felt good to do more of this whole language balance literacy idea, which does sound lovely. We're going to surround children with books. We're going to teach them how to love literacy and all of these things, but without those specific skills, they never are going to love literacy, and it just has perpetuated over the years. I think what has changed in terms of research, that for a lot of teachers is sort of an aha moment, is the cognitive research and the brain research that really supports what they were studying in 1979, 1980 and it just represents everything that they were saying worked well for kids. We can now see what's happening in the brain that supports those ideas.
JV: Those advances are giving us more data, and you can see better how those practices work. And again, not to harp too much on this one point, but Oregon, as you said, if we weren't the only one to sort of ignore this data, why are we still the state that seems to be lagging so much behind? Other states have had better test scores, improved their test scores, especially since COVID, everyone struggled with that, but Oregon still seems to be so far behind. And I'm wondering if there's something unique here that we're missing or not doing or some other factor?
RF: I think one thing that is unique, well, not necessarily unique to Oregon, but this idea of local control. Everyone gets to choose how they're going to meet the standards that are set by the state. And with that, because everyone has a different level of knowledge of how to teach reading, we get a lot of variability in how it's done from district to district and sometimes from school to school, and that is one way to account for some of those issues. The states that we have seen make huge gains have made it a statewide initiative. This is what we're going to do. These are the ways that we are going to meet the needs of kids in our schools. These are the ways we're going to train our teachers. This is how we're going to support them. That comes from that state leadership. Those states seem to be the ones that are seeing those gains quicker, and we just don't do that in Oregon. We allow it to be more of a choose your own adventure.
JV: We don't have that sort of statewide standard that's set for everyone?
RF: There are standards, but they're loose standards and how you carry out and meet those standards can be a range of different ways.
JV: Are there any misconceptions about teaching reading that you'd like to correct, things that you hear often that just people don't understand or aren't true?
RF: I definitely think that, going back to that Simple View of Reading idea, with all of the media attention that reading has received in the last few years, oftentimes there is this focus on phonics, as if phonics only is going to solve the issue. And so I think that's the biggest misconception. We can't ignore that language comprehension side and only do phonics. We're going to end up in the same boat. We really need to be looking at this more comprehensively.
JV: Can you just define phonics real quick if listeners don't know what that is?
RF: Phonics really is that idea of sound being represented by letters or graphemes. So it really is that connection. Kids come to us already knowing how to talk. They can hear sounds, they can produce sounds, but then they have to learn how to connect those sounds to the letters that represent those sounds. So that's basically phonics.
JV: So as we're talking about these low test scores in Oregon, who do we hold accountable for those low test scores? And how do we do that?
RF: Gosh, I think the accountability is multifaceted also. I think the state needs to take some ownership in that, and they really have. They've put together that with that idea that that's what schools will use to make sure kids are receiving the supports that they need to be good readers. But then it is accountability at the school level, at the district level, that the administrators are making sure that's what's happening in their schools, and then school administrators making sure that's what is happening in their classrooms, and that's where the assessment piece comes in. That's how we can see, Is this actually happening in schools? And again, the opting out is a problem because then we don't really have a full picture of whether or not schools are meeting those expectations. So I think accountability is key because without it, there's not a lot of urgency to make the changes when it really is an urgent issue. We've got to do better for kids.
JV: And you mentioned this once before, but the idea that parents can opt their kids out of the state testing. Tell me about that.
I think accountability is key because without it, there's not a lot of urgency to make the changes when it really is an urgent issue. We've got to do better for kids.Ronda Fritz, associate professor of education at Eastern Oregon University
RF: I think it all comes from a good place. We know that testing can be anxiety-provoking for some kids, and so the state has allowed parents to opt out of testing and not have their children tested. And when that happens, we're losing a population of kids that may be representative of even perhaps higher readings, so that will be skewing what our proficiency rate is, or it could be kids that are on the lower end. And so we don't know really. It just becomes a problem because we don't have good-quality data that represents all kids.
JV: There's not that full picture. So you mentioned this idea, the Simple View of Reading. And I'm wondering about what approaches to teaching reading have shown to be successful. Which ones do have better outcomes or seem to work best? And you mentioned the Simple View of Reading. Are there other methods that seem to work really well, or is that really the one that, in your view and your research, seems to be most effective?
RF: Yeah, I think it's the one that has the most evidential support that we know that if we explicitly address word recognition, and we explicitly and systematically develop language comprehension, we're going to get good outcomes for kids. [Does] every 100% of all kids need all of those pieces? No because they all come to us with different levels. But we know that if we provide that, that we can get almost all kids reading. If we don't, we're where we're at. 30 to 40% of kids are going to learn despite what we do, but if we provide them what they need, we can get almost 100% of kids.
JV: Are there districts in Oregon that you know of that are doing well, or that do have better test scores, and if so, what are they doing that seems to be working?
RF: This is also a double edged sword, sort of, because we don't really know if those state scores are representative of what is actually happening in the schools. There are a few schools that rose to the top. Adrian, Oregon is a tiny little school that is doing fantastic, and they have a system in place that supports their kids to make sure they're reading. So we see it in that little, tiny area. It is playing out in those third-grade test scores. What I will say is with this initiative that came up in the last biennium, and this money came in, we may not be seeing the fruits of that labor yet because we don't test them until third grade. What would be interesting is to look more at local data. Are they using curriculum-based measures that can tell us if kids are progressing the way they should be, and since this initiative, the literacy initiative, was really dedicated to kindergarten through second grade, I know a lot of schools that have moved that direction, but it isn't going to show up yet on those third-grade test scores because they haven't had time to get those kids through. So I think we're really going to see if anything we're doing right now is making a difference in a couple of years when those kindergartners that started with it are then being tested in third grade.
JV: Tell us more about that initiative. Remind our listeners what that was about.
RF: So the legislature passed the early literacy initiative that provided fairly substantial grants to every school district in Oregon. They did have to apply, but as I understand, every single school district did and received those funds. Those funds were earmarked for professional development, coaching, high-dosage tutoring and teacher training. So those were the things that they could spend that money on. We don't have a clear sense of what districts did with the majority of that money, but we do know that some did work on teacher training, and some did pick up high-dosage tutoring. But beyond that, we don't really have a really good sense of how that money was spent, but that was that part of that. In addition to that, there was a grant for community-based organizations to apply and provide tutoring services or literacy services of some kind to children. And that grant hasn't yet been announced. Folks have put in their applications, but we don't know yet if those community-based organizations have received that money.
JV: And you mentioned one school district in particular in Oregon that seems to be doing quite well in terms of its test scores and the system that they have in place. And I'm wondering, maybe it's just sort of the sluggishness of bureaucracy, but why has that system not been statewide implemented? This seems like a code red type of situation that we should be looking at the schools that are working and implementing that everywhere, and as far as I can tell, that doesn't seem to have happened. But correct me if I'm wrong.
RF: I don't think we've had a statewide investigation into which schools are doing well and how we can replicate what's happening in those districts. So I just don't think that approach has happened, and it kind of goes back to that local control idea. That's working for tiny little Adrian, Oregon. How does that translate to Portland Public Schools? It will be different, for sure. So I just don't think that's the approach folks have taken.
JV: Are there particular solutions that you would like to see implemented that you think would work, whether that's from administrators or legislators or communities. What do you think would help really address this problem?
What didn't work for other states, so what did they shift to make it happen? We don't need to make the same mistakes everyone else made again.Ronda Fritz, associate professor of education at Eastern Oregon University
RF: Well, I think again, this is really multi-layered. We have to do better with teacher preparation. We have to make sure they have a solid foundation. We do need to have a system of coaching that we know is giving teachers the support they need after they've had extensive training, and that means that teachers that are already in place, who are not going to be a part of these teacher prep programs that have improved that, are going to need some initial training and learning and then support to implement. So I think that's huge. That is also coupled with our administrators, from the building level to the district level, having a strong understanding of what needs to be happening in schools. It's just not common knowledge, and it's not something that has been a focus for many administrators, so they need to be trained so that they can also support these systems. And I think the data piece is huge. We've got to collect the data to see if what we're doing is working, and if it's not the third-grade state assessments, is there a way for us to implement a statewide system that we can already see in kindergarten? Is our kindergarten curriculum working? And that might be more curriculum based measures, something like that, that could be implemented statewide and also monitored to make sure it's working. The high-dosage tutoring is fantastic for those kids who we did miss we didn't support the way they needed to be. And it also can be really helpful for those kids come who come into school with needing extra support. So we can use that high dosage tutoring in that way. But I think one of the most important things to remember is that without system change, there is not enough manpower on Earth to provide enough intervention if we aren't doing the right things from the beginning. So it really needs to be a systems-wide approach and making sure that what's happening in the general education classroom, in what we call core instruction that everybody gets. If that's not high quality, then we're just going to be continually trying to catch up with more and more tutoring that we can't afford to provide.
JV: And that was something I wanted to ask you about, is you hear people talking about doing Head Start or other programs outside of school, tutoring, and whether or not that's a good solution to the problem. And it sounds like you're saying that can be sort of a supplemental piece as needed, but it's not really a replacement for good classroom instruction.
RF: No, it absolutely cannot replace that, and it can't keep up if that classroom instruction isn't high quality.
JV: What do you think needs to change? Are people in Oregon taking this as seriously as they should? Do people understand the magnitude of the problem, or does something need to shift to actually see a change or see a solution in the classroom?
RF: Well, that's an excellent question. I do think that some people see the urgency. Many people see the urgency of the situation. Some choose to question the assessments. So, Are they really giving us the right picture? Instead of really looking at what is happening in classrooms. And that can be frustrating if your only retort is, Well, we can't trust those tests anyway. But we're not just talking about state of Oregon tests. We're also talking about those scores, and they line right up. There was not a whole lot of difference in terms of what the data was saying.
JV: I'm just going to add, because you mentioned NAEP, that's the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as The Nation's Report Card, all of those test scores.
RF: Yeah. I think that we have to look at this from a systems perspective and not make it be each individual school's issue or each individual district's issue. It really has to come from a state level. And I think we have to look at those states who have made the shifts, and they have seen huge, huge gains. Instead of us trying to make it up for ourselves here in Oregon, we really need to look. What exactly did Mississippi do? What did Colorado do to make those changes? How does their system look different than our system? And what do we need to shift to make our system line up and have similar outcomes? And I think that's kind of the bottom line. We don't need to make this up. Other people have done it with similar populations to what our kids are, and so why aren't we looking there to see what the best practices are?
JV: I know asking you a lot of big, broad questions here. As we're thinking about teaching reading in Oregon and our test scores, are there any additional questions that you have as a professor, as a researcher, additional research you would like to conduct or things you'd like to explore further?
RF: That systems-level approach, and what are the key ingredients at the systems level? Well, really, what are the key ingredients at each level to make this happen for kids? And I do think lots of people are doing this research, and we just need to pay attention to it. And like I said before, other states are doing this, boots on the ground, and it's happening for their kids, so we should be looking very closely at that and figuring out how to replicate here in Oregon. In terms of looking to other states for replication, also looking to other states who have tried to put in initiatives and what didn't work for them. For instance, in Colorado, they did very much what we are doing right now initially, giving it much more local control, and found out it didn't work. It didn't make a difference. And so now they have shifted to more of a systems-level approach and starting from the state being the leaders in that initiative. So I think that's another source of information we need to pay attention to. What didn't work for other states, so what did they shift to make it happen? We don't need to make the same mistakes everyone else made again.
