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Implementing the Science of Reading at Raymore-Peculiar “Ray-Pec” School District
Peculiar, MO
Something was missing from the reading instruction at Raymore-Peculiar School District in Peculiar, MO. They were teaching the way they had been taught and trained to teach reading. They were using resources that were meant to help their students succeed. So why weren’t their students growing as readers? Why did they have to keep adding and supplementing their instruction with new resources and materials in order to bridge gaps that wouldn’t close?
They started doing their research. It turned out that what they needed to do to reach students as readers was look to science — or more specifically — the Science of Reading.
“We really dug down into information and how to train our teachers the science behind teaching a student to read,” said Principal Kiley Brown. “And that is where our district started.”
District leaders made a plan to bring the Science of Reading to its instruction through robust professional learning initiatives for its teachers and the adoption of Savvas Learning Company’s myView® Literacy — a comprehensive, district-wide literacy solution that aligned with their training. And now, in just their second year of implementation, they are seeing the growth they’ve been looking for.
“Our kiddos that came to us this year from kindergarten, we were all just astounded by what they could already do coming into first grade,” said first grade teacher Jill Fields. “Their decoding skills, their writing skills … we were amazed.”
Starting with the Science of Reading
Michelle Hofmann, director of curriculum, assessment, and elementary education and her instructional coaching team, academic services team, building leaders, and teacher leaders had been looking into the Science of Reading for a long time, and deciding whether or not to bring it into their instruction.
“We were all, in our own way, journeying with what is the Science of Reading?” she said.
As she and her team looked further into this more research-based form of instruction, she admitted that it wasn’t easy having to dispel what she thought of as best practices and with what she had been trained on in college or by using prior educational resources. But they all came to the conclusion that this was what they needed to provide better reading instruction for their students.
“So my instructional coaches and I worked with our state regional professional development center that was really on this train of Science of Reading and trying to figure out how to bring it to all teachers statewide,” said Michelle. “And so we really tapped into them and we said, okay, let's expedite our process.”
The district made a plan to adopt a new, Science of Reading-aligned resource and to implement that resources with as much teacher support as possible. District leaders made sure that whatever they adopted provided their students and staff with access to systematic and explicit instruction; highly relevant content; opportunities for students to have voice and choice in their learning; and engaging texts that would help their students build knowledge.
In 2022, they adopted and started implementing myView Literacy.
The Right Materials with the Right Training
myView provided teachers with explicit and systematic foundational skills activities for students in all grade levels, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and word recognition, which are the essential elements to effective Science of Reading-based instruction. myView lessons are also aligned to the Missouri State Standards, which is what the district uses as its curriculum.
“We really liked the connectivity and how [myView] made it easy to look across the board and say, in this unit, these are our learning targets,” said Kiley. “But the beautiful thing about myView, that really attracted it to us, is it helped connect the dots.”
Michelle and her team knew that in order to make the most out of their investment in myView, they needed to provide ample teacher support through ongoing professional learning opportunities.
“At the beginning, we knew that building teachers' competency and power and feeling like they've ‘got this’ was our number one thing,” said Kiley.
They kicked off their implementation in April of 2022 with a full-day training from Savvas educational consultants, well in advance of the 2022 fall semester when teachers would start using it in the classroom.
Since then, Ray-Pec has provided weekly professional learning community collaborations, as well as longer, monthly collaborations where teachers have the opportunity to dive deeper into their instruction and discuss what they need, as well as celebrations they can share with others.
The district also offers its teachers LETRS training, which stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, and provides teachers with comprehensive professional development in the Science of Reading.
“Teachers are going to do great things if they are empowered with the right materials and training and with the right autonomy,” said Michelle.
Seeing Growth
Ray-Pec teachers said that they have seen their students transform since the implementation of myView and Science of Reading-based instruction. They have seen participation where they didn’t before, as well as the enthusiasm for reading they were searching for.
“I've had some students who wouldn't even participate because they were nervous or they weren't strong in reading out loud,” said fourth grade teacher Helena Nunn. “Those students now, I can't get them to keep their hands down. They're always wanting to read out loud. They're always wanting to participate.”
Aside from participation and engagement levels increasing, educators have observed an improvement in writing and decoding skills that have transferred successfully as the students rise to the next grade level.
Michelle has also seen the shift to the Science of Reading benefit teachers. “We have teachers who are hugely more informed about the Science of Reading,” she said. “And that is already translating to what are far more aligned practices in their classrooms. And that is so exciting to walk in and see that.”