Here’s what happened to Gig Harbor reading scores during COVID, what teachers are doing
This school year, the Peninsula School District implemented a new type of learning in K-3 classrooms that helped their students’ reading scores excel during the pandemic.
The University of Oregon created the literacy program, called Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI), based on 60 years of research, James Cantowine, the district’s director of research and assessment, told The Gateway.
Tracy Morrison, a first grade teacher at Harbor Heights Elementary, uses it in her classroom.
“We all know there’s 26 letters in the alphabet with 26 sounds. But there’s actually 44 phonemes (sounds that can distinguish one word from another) that kids have to know and some of the letter pairs actually make multiple sounds. Our ECRI routine works on our letter sounds,” Morrison said.
This type of learning helps students pronounce certain letter pairs and to breakdown multi-syllabic words. Teachers take students through a routine of sounding out letters and deconstructing words.
It takes 30 minutes a day. The first half involves sounding out different words and letters as a class. The second half of this type of learning consists of students spelling out words individually at their desks. The teacher will say a word and students spell it on their whiteboards.
“Once you’re reading fluently, then that’s when you can begin to properly comprehend. When I started this year, 50 percent of my students were reading at grade level and now 70 percent of my kids are at reading grade level. Which means 20 percent of my kids who were below are now on track,” Morrison said.
Practiced in all K-3 classes
District officials examined how to improve reading outcomes for kids and chose ECRI, Cantowine said.
“Feedback from teachers told us they wanted more resources for implementing research-based early literacy strategies,” said Kelly Pruitt, elementary facilitator for Peninsula School District. “ECRI materials support teachers doing this. We chose ECRI for a couple of reasons. First, it is not a new set of books. It is ways of teaching that are effective and systematic. Secondly, it is not only research-based but evidence-based. State dyslexia legislation asks us to use evidence-based strategies.”
Teachers in the district received training for ECRI learning during the 2020-2021 school year. During the 2021-2022 school year it is being practiced in all K-3 classes.
“We’re seeing literacy scores look better in primary reading than they did pre-pandemic, which is not at all what we would have expected,” Cantowine said.
The Peninsula School District uses two different reading assessments to measure students’ progress. The first assessment is the University of Oregon’s Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIEBLS). For this assessment students identify letters or read aloud to assess decoding and fluency, Cantowine said. The second type of assessment the schools use is i-Ready, a computer-adaptive reading assessment that includes vocabulary and comprehension questions.
The district doesn’t know yet how their scores compare to other districts. After the school year is finished, they should know more.
“Informally we hear from curriculum associates, the developer behind the i-Ready assessment, that our results are not at all what they are seeing in any other district in the state. We are not seeing the same size of decline in scores that other districts are seeing,” Cantowine said.
The district shared scores from both assessments with The Gateway.
Percentage of students scoring at or above grade level on DIEBLS:
| Grade | Spring 2019 | Spring 2022 | Change |
| K | 39% | 65% | 26% |
| 1 | 66% | 68% | 2% |
| 2 | 65% | 65% | 0% |
| 3 | 68% | 72% | 4% |
Percentage of students scoring at or above grade level on i-Ready:
| Grade | Spring 2019 | Spring 2022 | Change |
| 1 | 69% | 74% | 5% |
| 2 | 68% | 73% | 5% |
| 3 | 82% | 85% | 3% |
“Anecdotally, I see students engaged in classrooms with more opportunities to respond, feeling successful, and accessing the grade-level content in ways we haven’t seen before,” Pruitt said. “I see teachers implementing evidence-based practices in the primary grades.”
