Senior Journalism Capstone

These are a few of the stories I was able to write during my Senior Journalism Capstone course. It was a service learning course so we worked with an organization that dealt with childhood literacy in the High Point, NC area.

The View From the Classroom

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Elisa Mattingly

What do you remember about elementary school?

Most people would reminisce about recess, being read to by their teacher, field trips or doing math problems on the board.

What about standardized tests? Do you remember those?

Those days were filled with desks set in perfect rows, bright yellow pencils, Scantron test sheets and headaches.

These are not the days that people have fond childhood memories about. But, they are fast becoming one of the most important elements of North Carolina Public Schools.

With the End-of-Grade tests for third through eighth grade students, the Writing Assessments for fourth, eighth and tenth-grade students and the End-of-Course tests for high school students, standardized testing is rampant in public schools.

While tests can be important indicators of a child’s development, many people believe children are being oversaturated with them.

North Carolina ranked 39 out of the 50 states in the National Assessment of Educational Progress for Reading, according to U.S. News & World Report. Many teachers and parents are beginning to wonder if teaching to the test is really the best option.

Real Reading Trouble

While standardized testing continues to be debated in North Carolina, the issue of child literacy within the state is clear.

According to Kids Count Data Center, 62 percent of fourth grade students were not proficient in reading based on standardized test scores.

It has been shown that if a child is not literacy proficient by third grade, he/she may never catch up with his/her classmates.

Michelle Chapin, Project Manager for Ready for School, Ready for Life, a Guilford County program focused on improving child literacy, stressed the importance of on-grade-level reading.

“That third grade marker can be a predictor for whether you graduate from high school, end up going to college or end up, perhaps, in jail,” Chapin said. “It’s remarkable the long-term impact that not reading on grade level by third grade can have.”

Programs like Ready for School, Ready for Life pinpoint the issues that North Carolina students are facing and begin to alleviate those issues before students even reach kindergarten.

“Starting backwards is the key, and the earlier that we can have families starting to think about early literacy, and the way the brain develops, the better chance their children will have of not needing remediation,” Chapin said.

The goal is for children to learn the necessary pre-literacy skills, so that there is no risk of being behind by third grade. They're making sure that students are prepared before that literacy marker and before the standardized testing begins.

Expecting Too Much?

While North Carolina’s child literacy statistics will strike fear and urgency in some teachers’ hearts, other professionals see the numbers differently.

A professor of Elementary Education, who wishes to remain anonymous, is part of the group that sees it differently.

“I think that sometimes we’re asking young children to do too much,” the professor said.

She believes that most children would benefit from a more play-based school structure that places much less emphasis on testing and more on application.

“We’ve kind of lost the way on how children need to learn through play,” the professor said. “Children need to learn in ways that are not stressful and not have a lot of standardized testing.”

While the concern of child literacy is obviously important to people involved in the educational system, pressures put on children to reach a certain proficiency at a certain time can be stressful.

“My concern has to do more with an assumption that children all have to be at a certain level at a certain time,” she said.

Unlike most milestones in a child’s life, there is little wiggle-room for a child to learn at their own pace when they must reach certain proficiency levels in school.

“We don’t expect children to all walk at the exact same month,” the professor said. “A child needs to learn to walk between 9 months and a year and a half. But we don’t label them as a concern just because they’re not running across the room yet at 10 months.”

The practice of “teaching to the test” does not aid in a child’s natural development of literacy skills. Teachers must teach in a way that benefit test scores, not necessarily a child’s natural learning patterns.

“I think that sometimes with our pushing, believing that kids need to be doing so much so early, we might be causing bigger concerns,” the professor said. “We’re not giving them the time and space to play and grow that might be more natural to their development.”

It is not, however, a teacher’s fault if he/she must structure curriculum in such a way that limits learning through play.

“There is a lot more that can be done through play that schools aren’t allowed to do, due to constraints that are put upon them,” the professor said. “Sometimes, when schools get bogged down in requirements and programs, good teachers can have their hands tied.”

They are not convinced that standardized tests are the most accurate way to assess a child’s proficiency, development or overall knowledge. Stressing the importance of the test and putting students through days of back-to-back testing, in order to see how much they have absorbed, may not be the best indicator of knowledge.

“It’s interesting what we do to children that we would not allow to occur to ourselves,” the professor said.

Of course, some testing is necessary and an important aspect of the education system.

“I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be assessing,” the professor said. “Sometimes literacy is just taken apart into such small pieces that the bigger idea of what reading and writing is for can get lost.”

Inside the Classroom

Currently, it is quite common for a North Carolina public school teacher to organize classes around the information that is likely to be on the end-of-year tests. This is called “teaching to the test.”

An anonymous source who works within North Carolina public schools explained that many teachers, looking for the pay raise good test scores can bring, will continually stress to students that a certain equation or reading strategy “will be on the EOG,” meaning the End-of-Grade standardized test.

The source also stated that they had had heard of teachers changing students’ answers in order to raise their class performance and, hopefully, receive a raise.

Brenna Hickey, a third-grade student teacher at Friendship Elementary School, describes how current teaching techniques can further hinder a student’s love of learning. She describes how “stations,” a practice where students go to one location after another, doing new activities at each, is no longer used in many classrooms.

“At our school, the teachers are not big fans of doing stations,” Hickey said. “Even though they help kids and make them excited to learn.”

Hickey’s third grade students are a diverse group. While many are proficient in the necessary skills, many are struggling at this pivotal time. Many find difficulty with reading comprehension.

“They’ll read something, then I’ll ask them questions after and they’ll say, ‘I don’t remember,’” Hickey said.

Hickey is already learning how to teach to the test. She helps the children with reading strategies that will be helpful to them on the EOGs, such as underlining key words and finding evidence for answers in the text. These are valuable skills, but the test is always a factor.

“They learn something, and they take a test right away,” Hickey said. “Then the EOGs are mentioned and that just stresses them out.”

As Hickey begins to think of the classroom she will be teaching in soon, she remembers her own experience in elementary school, learning things that were not guaranteed to be on a test.

“There are so many things that I learned in school that they don’t learn about because teachers are teaching exactly what they’ll have to know on the EOGs,” Hickey said. “It’s sad. They’re just being taught how to answer questions.”

Of course, standardized tests are important indicators of a child’s progress and growth, but it seems that many classrooms have lost the joy of learning in exchange for testing.

“I believe in quizzes and tests,” Hickey said. “You have to have some kind of formal assessments, but there needs to be a balance.”

Hopefully, within the debate of testing versus no testing, that balance will be found.

Literacy for All

Elisa Mattingly

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Bringing literacy to all, that’s what the teams at Reading Connections and Ready for School, Ready for Life are striving to do.

Reading Connections, an organization focused on adult literacy in Guilford County, and Ready for School, Ready for Life, an organization focused on child literacy in Guilford County, have partnered to provide proper resources to families with babies and small children in order to provide them with the right preparation for kindergarten.

According to the 2016-2017 Teaching Strategies GOLD Growth Reports for Guilford County, “60.7 percent of 4-year-olds ready to transition to kindergarten are below widely held expectations for their age” in literacy.

While they have large goals to help benefit childhood literacy in Guilford County, Michelle Chapin, Project Manager for Ready for School, Ready for Life, and Adriana Adams, Family Literacy Manager for Reading Connections, bring different reasons as to why they strive to help.

Reading Struggles

Around 12 percent of Guilford County residents are non-English speakers, according to Data USA. These families often struggle to help their children prepare for school.

Many families feel they are not capable of providing their children with the skills necessary to enter kindergarten. This can be due to their lack of education or because English is their second language.

Adriana Adams explains that parents may be hesitant to interact with their child in their native language as they are afraid that it may stunt their children’s English language growth.

“Some of these parents are afraid that if they speak to their child in Spanish, they’re putting them further back,” Adams said. “So, they put them in front of the TV and say, ‘Maybe they’ll learn some English.’”

The practice of letting the television teach the child is hindering the child in more than just language development.

“They might be picking up on some English [from television], but what they’re not getting is that interaction,” Adams said. “They’re not getting that book read to them. They’re not learning some of those basic things they need to start kindergarten. They’re not going out of the house as much. They’re not getting emotionally prepared for kindergarten.”

This lack of preparation causes teachers to have to rework lesson plans to facilitate the needs of these children because they are not able to begin learning grade-level literacy skills.

“What teachers are having to do is instead of starting with ABCs and 123s, they are having to start even further back,” Adams said. “‘This is a book. This is a pencil. This is how you hold a book.’ These are things that are typically done in the home.”

Reading Connections and Ready for School are providing parents with programs that help them take an active role in their child’s early literacy development. By learning how to speak and read to their children, they are able to provide the interaction necessary for proper cognitive development.

“It’s not just teaching these parents English so that they can talk to their children, it’s saying that their home language is a great place to start,” Adams said. “It's telling them, 'Don’t remove yourself.'”

By providing parents the tools to help their children, Michelle Chapin explains, they gain confidence in the fact that they are able to help their children, not hinder them.

“They build their confidence because they’re getting this curriculum from the program,” Chapin said. “They can know, based on science, that they can actually help their child’s growth and development.”

Contrasting Cultures and Policy Walls

While providing families with the at-home curriculum they need to aid in their child’s development can be difficult, there are several other factors that make Reading Connections and Ready for School’s job a challenge.

Because many of these families are immigrants, it is a risk each day for them to leave their homes. Something as simple as going to an after-school program may put their safety in question.

“There’s been a lot of fear,” Adams said. “We do an after-school program for the family literacy program. That means that the family has to come out of their home again. Some of them walk, but some of them have to get in a car and drive. That’s a really scary experience for someone who has questionable immigrant status.”

The anti-immigrant policies, a hallmark of Trump’s presidency, has made things even trickier for non-native residents.

“It’s been challenging this past year,” Adams said. “We’re making sure families feel safe when they come and making sure that they have their basic needs met, so that they can focus on their learning.”

Another challenge is the cultural differences present in many of the households. Some families do not recognize how important interaction with an infant can be for their cognitive development.

“There are cultures, and even just parents [who were raised differently], that don’t recognize that pre-literacy skills really do start right after birth because of the way the brain develops,” Chapin said.

It can also be difficult for families to make time in their busy schedules to come to a literacy program or to allow for the necessary amount of time to aid in their child’s literacy development.

“One of the challenges is family engagement,” Chapin said. “Families are busy. They don’t necessarily think that what we have to offer is what they need. We need to be conscientious of that. We need to listen and learn them from them in terms of what their needs are.”

It takes time for families to realize how important this work can be. It takes even more time to build up trust between the organizations and the families they help.

“They feel you are someone they can trust and can talk with,” Chapin said. “That relationship building takes time.”

Reading Rewards

Although there are frequent challenges, both organizations find that the final product of their work is what makes all of the struggles worth it.

Seeing families take an active role in their child’s learning, when they were so hesitant to do so before the program, is an exciting moment for both the family and the organization.

“The most rewarding part is seeing families succeed,” Adams said. “Seeing a grandmother and a mother come to our program and sit together and read a book together for the first time to their child, it’s just a really beautiful thing to be a part of.”

Building trust with a family, especially one that has had a difficult time over the past year is also one of the best parts of being involved with these organizations.

“There’s been a lot of struggle this past year in the immigrant community," Adams said. “There have been a lot of people that I work with that have been negatively affected by some new policies. So, helping a family get through that, and being brought in as a part of that process, is very rewarding. It's rewarding to know that they trust us enough to do that.”

Beyond the help that the organization can give, it is also important that these families build relationships with each other in order to build necessary support systems.

“The program brought together two High Point families that didn’t know each other even though they were actually neighbors,” Chapin said. “If programs aren’t there to bring families together to build that social network, then that social network may never happen.”

These social networks can mean someone to help implement the program’s curriculum into a home or someone to lean on during tough times.

“That’s the difference between families who can pull themselves out of those difficult times and those who can’t,” Chapin said. “It’s those social networks and the social capital that is built when you lean on each other. To have another neighbor be able to give you a ride when your car breaks down or to watch your kids when you have to run to work, those little relationships, can really make a big difference in someone’s life. We’re making those connections happen and they’re continuing to stay close and be that support for each other.”

The confidence, support and social networks that families are cultivating through these programs are necessary tools. The most important aspect of the program, however, is how they are helping to provide the resources to aid in children’s cognitive development and cultivation of literacy skills.

“It is all about the future of our community,” Chapin said. “The infants of today will someday be adults. We want them all to be healthy and have productive lives, whatever that is for them.”

For more information on Reading Connections, go to readingconnections.org. For more information about Ready for School, Ready for Life, go to getreadyguilford.org.