How Florida School Districts Can Make the State #1 for Reading Success

Florida has the potential to join Mississippi as an example for other states on how to tackle the literacy crisis that’s gripped the country for decades. 

Since 2021 alone, reading instruction in Florida has undergone a series of sweeping changes, including the implementation of a student progress monitoring system and new Science of Reading teacher training requirements. It’s clearly paying off. 

The Sunshine State climbed from 11th place to third in the nation for 4th grade reading proficiency in 2022, one of only a handful of states to realize reading growth from pre-pandemic levels. 

Improvement in reading outcomes is certainly an achievement worth celebrating. 

However, after overseeing more than 1 million high-dosage tutoring sessions that have helped tens of thousands of students master the foundational reading skills necessary to read fluently, I look at the return on these meaningful investments, and say “yes, and …”

Yes, the State of Florida is making many of the right moves.

And Florida district and school leaders need to build on these changes as quickly as possible to ensure all kids in the state are reading fluently and on time. 

Here’s how to do that. 

Focus on 1st Grade Fluency

“Read by grade three” has become a rallying call in education, however to make this a reality, our students need to be reading fluently by the end of 1st grade to set the stage for successful reading in 3rd. 

As BEST standards for ELA indicate, it’s during 1st grade that our students need to master foundational reading skills like phonics, which form the building blocks for reading fluency. 

Until fluency is mastered and word recognition becomes automatic, the brain does not have the means to focus attention on the more complex task of reading comprehension required in 3rd grade. Making sense of entire sentences and paragraphs just cannot happen when the brain is still working on decoding individual words. 

Is it any wonder then that data has shown a direct line between 1st grade reading achievement and that of 3rd grade achievement? Students on benchmark for phonics skills in 1st grade have an 83 percent chance of being on benchmark for all reading skills in the pivotal 3rd grade year.

When we don’t give kids the support they need to master their foundational reading skills by the end of 1st grade, we see the opposite occur. There’s a 90 percent likelihood that students who aren’t reading on grade level at the end of 1st grade will still not be reading on grade level years into the future, and starting in 3rd grade, the likelihood of their teacher knowing how to teach primary-level reading skills is diminished.

The state’s mandate that districts replace ineffective and discredited strategies for reading instruction with those that are grounded in the Science of Reading is a huge step toward this goal. 

And the brain scientists who have uncovered important information about how we learn to read have proven that improving our Tier 1 instruction is not enough. Even the most effective classroom teacher, one who is using a high-quality evidence-based curriculum and teaching it with fidelity, cannot address the varying learning needs of the majority of students.  

The research shows as much as 60 percent of our 1st graders require code-based, systematic, and explicit instruction to become skilled readers. Of those, as much as 15 percent also require frequent repetitions and review to fully crack the code of the English language and become fluent readers. 

Our kids are depending on us to proactively identify when they need this reading help early, and Florida educators are fortunate to have a growing number of tools at their disposal to help make this happen, including:

1. FAST Star Early Literacy testing at the start of kindergarten
2. Literacy assessments conducted three times per year for VPK-10th grade 
3. Progress planning and evidence-based intervention requirements for K-3 students identified as having a reading deficiency

How to Maximize Your Assessment Impact

In my experience as a 1st grade teacher, school administrator, and now CEO who talks daily with educators at all levels, here are some key steps I see most often missed by districts as they make the shift to Science of Reading-aligned instruction and assessments.

1. Monitor progress between assessments. FAST assessments may only be required three times a year, but our 1st graders don’t have time for us to “wait and see how it’s going.” Interventions should be iterative, and regular progress monitoring can identify when growth is moving forward or has reached a plateau,  if students are regressing, or if they’re bounding forward on certain skills but stuck on others. This will enable your team to revise supports in a timely manner.
2. Provide instructional staff with assessment training. Your staff may have already completed professional development coursework focused on the Science of Reading to meet the requirements of HB7039, but how much of that PD was focused on assessments? Did they specifically learn how to apply that data to adjust instruction to meet the students’ specific needs? If the answer is no, it’s critical that your district provide staff with the time they need for this training.
3. Keep your teachers in the data loop. Speaking of instructional staff, all too often, I’ve had teachers tell me that they can’t make data-driven decisions because information siloes prevent them from getting the insights they need to support their students. Even when assessment data indicates students need a Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention like high-dosage tutoring or time with the school reading specialist, it’s important for teachers to have the full picture of their students’ needs to inform classroom instruction.
4. Take a comprehensive approach to reading assessments. Your district should have a cohesive plan for how reading assessment data is organized and used in decision making, with measurable goals established per grade level defining what it means to be on track to meet ELA BEST standards.
5. Use a high-quality diagnostic assessment. Universal screeners like FAST are a bit like the blood pressure cuff at your doctor’s office. Just as the cuff can help identify when someone’s blood pressure is high but doesn’t reveal the cause of the pressure spike, a universal screener is an important tool for identifying that a child needs help. A quality diagnostic screener can then be used to pinpoint a student’s exact strengths and needs to provide the right interventions.
6. Leverage high-dosage tutoring data to inform instruction. If your diagnostic data indicates a student needs frequent repetitions and review to master foundational reading skills, a   high-quality high-dosage tutoring partner can enable your district to provide students with one-to-one instruction to quickly close foundational reading gaps. The key term here is “high-quality.”
   
   When it comes to data, a high-quality high-dosage tutoring partner is one that not only uses data to assess their own effectiveness at improving student learning but also shares program data frequently with your school or district to inform classroom instruction.

Bottom Line 

As Florida districts consider how to best implement and iterate on state reading policies, one thing remains true: Our students cannot continue to wait for us to get this right. 

About the Author: 

Jessica Sliwerski is the co-founder and CEO of Ignite Reading, a public benefit corporation that provides school districts with one-to-one online tutoring that teaches students the foundational skills they need to become confident, independent readers. Districts across the country use Ignite Reading to provide data-driven differentiated instruction that closes their students’ decoding gaps. Early in her career, Jessica served as assistant principal of Success Academy Charter Schools and a literacy specialist at The Urban Assembly. Jessica also co-founded and was chief academic officer and chief product officer of LightSail Education, an adaptive literacy software company, and was CEO of Open Up Resources, a national nonprofit focused on increasing equity in education. 

For more information about Ignite Reading’s 1:1 tutoring services, please contact Alexandra Gottlieb, Director of Partnerships, alexandra.gottlieb@ignite-reading.com