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How Massachusetts is implementing the research findings in the National Research Council Report, "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children."
Massachusetts sponsors a variety of conferences, workshops, and grant programs promoting understanding and application of recent reading research. Through the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Title I Dissemination Project, the Massachusetts Reading Association, and the Lesley College Reading Recovery Training Center, educators throughout Massachusetts enjoy excellent statewide training on current research, theory, and practice. Financial resources to improve the teaching of early reading are available to schools and districts through multiple state and federally funded sources. Grant programs include: The Massachusetts Early Literacy Intervention program; Essential Skills; Achieving Student Success; Even Start: Family Literacy; Goals 2000: Professional Development in English Language Arts and History/Social Science; Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program; Family Literacy Challenge; After School Program; Title I; and Goals 2000: Redesign of Teacher Pre-service Experience in Literacy Development. Numerous Massachusetts schools access those training and funding opportunities and have developed or adapted highly successful early literacy practices. Nationally recognized reading programs currently in use in Massachusetts include Reading Recovery, First Steps, Success for All, and Project Read, among others.
The Samuel W. Mason School in Boston is an example of how a high poverty school can dramatically improve student achievement. An inner-city elementary school with 91% low-income students, Mason has transformed itself over the last seven years by engaging in whole school reform and extensive changes in literacy practices. The "Mason Way" for teaching reading and language arts is now a nationally recognized, highly effective, balanced approach for insuring that all children become effective readers and writers. Through the use of shared and guided reading, phonics that work, interactive writing, writer?s workshop, a mix of whole-group, small-group, and 1-on-1 instruction, teaching styles matched to children?s learning styles, six-week assessment cycles using portfolios, running records, and other authentic measures, and a focus on family literacy, standardized reading test achievement at the Mason School is now in the upper quartile of all Boston Public Schools.
Jonna Casey
Boston Annenberg Challenge
2 Oliver St.
Boston, MA 02109
(617) 350-8901
(617) 350-7525 Fax
E-mail: jonna27@aol.com
[Michigan]