Dr. Jan Richardson talks about her book, "Guided Reading," during a lunch break Tuesday at Apison Elementary School. Becky Coleman, left, is director of literacy for Hamilton County Schools.READING TIPS• Each day, students should have the opportunity to read books they select themselves. Teach them how to choose books they can and want to read, books that will capture their interest and keep them reading.• The number of days spent on a book depends upon the reading level and text choice. I never go longer than five days on a book, because the children lose interest.• Pictures in an alphabet tracing book should have the same pictures as the child's alphabet chart.Source: www.janrichardsonguidedreading.com
Calling Jan Richardson a "rock star" in the world of children's reading and literacy instruction doesn't go far enough for Allyson DeYoung.
"She's beyond a rock star," said DeYoung, the principal of Ganns Middle Valley Elementary School.
DeYoung was among some 500 Hamilton County public school administrators, teachers and literacy coaches who gathered last week in the gym of Apison Elementary School for a workshop Richardson put on to teach "guided reading."
"This will teach children to read," DeYoung said.
Richardson's method puts students with similar reading methods into small groups. They're given books they can read with 90 percent accuracy. Then students learn problem-solving strategies to figure out words they don't know, grapple with difficult sentence structure and understand concepts they've never encountered in print, said Scholastic, the publisher of Richardson's 304-page, $28.99 textbook, "The Next Step in Guided Reading."
Richardson's book is the bible for Hamilton County elementary school teachers. The school district recently bought copies for every kindergarten through fifth-grade teacher.
Teachers and literacy coaches in Apison's gymnasium pored over their books last Wednesday and followed along as Richardson used her method on a group of fifth-graders who are fluent at the mechanics of reading - yet have trouble comprehending reading material. The session included Richardson filling out a form that was projected onto a screen so teachers could follow along.
"That's what people don't understand, is how much reading is a process. And for some students, [reading] doesn't just magically happen," said Becky Coleman, the district's director of K-12 literacy. "There's a process, and it's hard work. There's no silver bullet."
While Richardson's book uses educational jargon, parts of it are accessible to the layperson, too.
For example, Richardson compiled a list of the 100 words that are most likely to be misspelled by fifth-graders who struggle with reading. The word "jumped," for example, is usually spelled "jumpt" by bad spellers, Richardson said.
"These words make up about 80 percent of a child's writing," she said of the list.
For kindergartners who don't know the alphabet, the best way to catch up is by tracing letters, Richardson's book says.
If students begin kindergarten knowing fewer than five letters, it takes three months of tracing for them to learn the alphabet, the book says. For students who know between six and 15 letters, learning the alphabet requires two months of training. If they know at least 16 letters, it takes a month of tracing to learn the alphabet.
Richardson's method works, school officials say.
Hillcrest Elementary School, a school of about 285 students in a 65-year-old brick building on Bonny Oaks Drive, saw its reading scores increase after its teachers embraced Richardson's method, Coleman said. Hillcrest's third-grade through fifth-grade students went from 23.7 percent of them being proficient in reading to 36.6 percent proficient, said Coleman.
"They made the highest growth in the school system," Coleman said. "When it's done with fidelity and it's done with consistency, [guided reading] works - and the data shows that."
Richardson, who lives in Richland Center, Wis., has visited Hamilton County schools multiple times over the past decade. Her book has sold about 100,000 copies, Richardson said, and it's Scholastic's top-selling professional book.
"Ron Hughes, the principal of Apison [Elementary], encouraged her to write her book," Coleman said.
Richardson's recent visit was funded by a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga. The school board on Sept. 18 approved spending $17,500 in federal Title II funds to have Richardson come seven times this school year.
"Jan Richardson is a national authority on guided reading," said Dan Challener, president of Chattanooga's Public Education Foundation. "She literally wrote the book on guided reading."
Challener said Hamilton County is adopting Richardson's approach district-wide. The district's literacy coaches, who work in all the elementary schools, are trained in Richardson's methods, he said.
"It's not one of those 'come in once and everybody's supposed to change' practices," said Challener.
Reading skills are critical, Challener said.
"It's absolutely the gateway to all learning," he said. "It's absolutely critical for a student."
Yet in Hamilton County and statewide, Challener said, schools haven't made as much progress in literacy as they have in math.
DeYoung introduced Richardson's afternoon session at Apison Elementary with an inspiring story about a student named Demetrius whom DeYoung helped learn to read when she was an elementary school teacher.
She noticed that Demetrius would hunch up, get angry and think other students were staring at him because he was insecure about his inability to read well. One-on-one coaching eventually got Demetrius reading at grade level, and now he's at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., on a football scholarship that he received partly because of his academic skills, DeYoung said.
She ran into Demetrius' mother recently, and learned that Demetrius stayed on campus over break.
"He chose not to come home because he had two exams," DeYoung said.
"It transformed his life, really," she said of the reading coaching. "I was the key to helping him become a better reader so he could become successful in life."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com, www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu, twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.