Refining Our Approach to Early Literacy: When Teachers Become the Students

A rare sight, but each of Lakota’s 80 K-3 English language arts teachers had the chance to be the student a few weeks into the new school year. Grade level teaching teams, joined by their teacher leaders, huddled in the back of a classroom to watch an expert trainer deliver a phonics lesson to their students.

On the heels of a new instructional tool for K-3 literacy implemented last school year, the District’s curriculum team says this year’s theme for early literacy is “refinement.” As such, the team kicked off the new year with an invitation to their partners at “Heggerty Bridge to Reading” to assist with their unique approach to teacher training and professional development. 

“I always hear from teachers that the best PD they’ve ever had was being able to step back and see their work in action with their kids,” said Director of K-6 Curriculum & Instruction Emily Hermann, who observed most of the Heggerty-led lesson before joining each teaching team for a debrief with the trainer. 

“It was great. They got to experience the pacing of the lesson, see a different way that hand motions are used to deliver the material and just ask questions about things they are wondering after a whole year with the new material,” Hermann continued. 

Lakota’s adoption of the new curriculum program was in response to a state requirement that all districts select a tool that matches the new “Science of Reading” evidence-based research for literacy instruction. Under this model, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary comprehension and fluency are delivered in a “systematic, sequential and explicit” way, explains Wyandot ECS teacher leader Melissa Riehle. 

“There’s a certain science to teaching a child to read,” said Riehle, explaining that being “explicit” means delivering instruction in a structured and direct way where the teacher clearly models and provides guided practice. It also means letting students experience the content in different ways to make it memorable and draw associations. Being systematic and sequential means delivering the content in a consistent manner and in the order that is proven to work most effectively. 

“If you use the same pattern every day, you can focus more on teaching the content and not the systems and routines,” Riehle continued. 

Hermann reiterated that this consistency across grades and even buildings is one step toward creating a more equitable experience for all students, no matter which classroom they land in for phonics and literacy instruction. It’s also helpful in the transition from one grade to the next. 

“It was great to hear so many of our teachers express that their students came in prepared and already knowing the routines for phonics and reading,” Hermann said. “That saves so much time. Teachers can just pick up and go.” 

Beyond such feedback, Hermann said the District saw impressive strides in student growth for literacy after just one year using the new program and new assessment tools, too. Unfortunately, this success is not accurately represented on the District's 2024-2025 state report card because of how the “Early Literacy” component is calculated, paired with the adverse effect of Lakota’s grade band configuration.

The Early Literacy component on the state report card is based on three different metrics: 

• The percentage of students who moved from “off track” to “on track” for their particular grade level in one year’s time. (For the 2024-2025 report card, this measured growth from fall 2023 through fall 2024, for example.)
• The percentage of students who scored at least 700 on the Ohio Standardized Test (OST) for reading (third grade only).
• The percentage of students promoted to fourth grade (third grade only). 

Because Lakota’s early childhood schools include only grades K-2, Hermann explained, their final grades are based solely on the first metric. Although getting every student to grade-level literacy is a priority, this also means that they aren’t “getting credit” for the students who are, in fact, “on track” - just the ones who move from one category to the next. “As that pool of students gets smaller and smaller,” Hermann explains, “as hard as we try, it gets more and more difficult to improve that percentage.” Additionally, all schools feel the effects of the first metric's timing since it doesn't reflect growth beyond fall of that school year.

Regardless, Hermann reiterates that teachers are continuously using data beyond the state tests to measure student growth for literacy and all other content areas. In fact, Hermann is especially excited about the formation of teacher-based teams this year. Every two weeks, these teams of grade- and subject-specific teachers across buildings will meet to review student data and make adjustments, as needed.

“Sometimes the best thing we can do is just carve out time to get together and talk about what’s working and what’s not working,” Hermann said.