The 10-hour Science of Reading Intro Course<\/a> is an asynchronous, video-based professional learning program. It covers phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping, phonics, fluency, comprehension, writing, and literacy. <\/p>\n\u201cMoving into the science of reading, the course really allowed all the professionals to understand the why behind it and what happens to your brain when you\u2019re actually reading. And I think that was a big \u2018Aha!\u2019 for a lot of the adults within the district,\u201d said Christine Chavez, deputy superintendent for District 31.<\/p>\n
PS 42 in particular is \u201cso far ahead\u201d because it is immersing its entire staff in the course, according Chavez.<\/p>\n
A common language<\/p>\n
The course helps school staff understand the \u201cwhy\u201d behind how children learn to read. <\/p>\n
It has created a common language among educators \u2014 including teachers and paraprofessionals, and even cluster teachers like media and physical education teachers \u2014 to use this \u201cscience of reading\u201d curriculum in all lessons. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t we be focusing on a systemic practice?\u201d asked Brian Sharkey, principal of PS 42. \u201c\u2026We hope that this is a practice that is continually deepening \u2026Everyone\u2019s involved and so now we\u2019re starting to see in our conversations and observations, and informal and formal talking with children \u2014 we\u2019re starting to reap the benefits and see the outcomes, which is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pace Miles explained that children have a finite amount of mental energy to give at any moment in time, so it becomes a balancing act for educators when teaching both phonics and comprehension.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we hope is that in pre-K through second grade, we are mastering some of this encoding and decoding so that can flip our mental energy and have it very heavy on the comprehension side of things, where the decoding becomes automatic,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
The coursework supports both veteran and new teachers, said Sharkey. All teachers at PS 42 are learning the course together.<\/p>\n
Teachers \u2018on the same level\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s helping us all be on the same level, you know, no matter if you have two years of teaching or 20 years of teaching … It\u2019s proven. It\u2019s science,\u201d said Colette Elder, a first-grade teacher at PS 42, who has been teaching for over 24 years.<\/p>\n
In first grade, students are learning about phonemic awareness \u2014 blending the phonics to know what sounds each letter makes and how those letters come together to create words, and those words come together to create sentences. That\u2019s when the fluency happens, Elder explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you have to start at the science of reading, it starts at the basics. The number one thing is phonemic awareness and it builds upon that, and that\u2019s how children\u2019s brains learn to work, by mapping things in small increments. But it has to be explicit. I think what this course has done for everybody, it\u2019s given all teachers across grade bands in our entire school, we have the same common language when we talk about it. So it took a lot of guesswork out of it,\u201d said Elder.<\/p>\n
For students who aren\u2019t reading at grade level, teachers learn to meet students where they are in their learning. Fourth-grade teacher Jessica Ciaccio explained that her students should already have that structure of phonemic awareness and fluency. If they don\u2019t, educators start to work backward and learn where the rift began.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking that and building on what they\u2019re supposed to know how to do already \u2014 because it\u2019s less learning to read and more reading to learn \u2014 if they don\u2019t have that learning to read piece, reading to learn is going to be really hard for them,\u201d said Ciaccio. \u201cIt\u2019s building on what I learned in the course and working backward with the kids. You kind of know that there\u2019s a rift somewhere and trying to find it is the piece that I\u2019m working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Improving student outcomes<\/p>\n
The course has improved student outcomes by building foundational skills, boosting student confidence, and helping teachers pinpoint specific areas of struggle, like decoding or fluency \u2014 rather than just proficiency. <\/p>\n
Schools like PS 42 have also utilized what is called a WIN Period, which stands for \u201cWhat I Need.\u201d It offers time for each student to work individually \u2014 whether that\u2019s to get support, remediate, or enrich learning. So if a student needs to work on decoding, or work on fluency, they have the time to work on a skill individually with an educator.<\/p>\n
New York City also introduced literacy screeners that are given to students three times a school year. They measure student progress, allowing schools to intervene to help youth throughout the year, rather than waiting for state tests, which only show proficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we think about screeners, that\u2019s something important \u2026 it\u2019s not about proficiency,\u201d said Allison Angioletti, district achievement and instructional specialist for District 31. \u201cIt\u2019s telling you if a kid is on track to meet grade level by the end of the year or if they are at risk, based on how they perform on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aileen Dulski, assistant principal at PS 42, noted how the screeners help educators take a breath and meet students where they are in their learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome kids come up discouraged, but if they\u2019re making small gains \u2014 although they might not be proficient, at grade level, they are making gains within that piece where it\u2019s giving them the confidence to maybe try a book that they might not have previously but use all those skills for that piece,\u201d said Dulski.<\/p>\n
Free course available to NYC teachers<\/p>\n
All of this work \u2014 the 10-hour course, screeners, WIN periods, and a strong emphasis on literacy from both the city and school district \u2014 has led to educators seeing growth among students in the way they are reading. <\/p>\n
The Reading Institute is offering 3,000 free seats for the course for New York City public school teachers in the current school year, as well as free seats for City University of New York students. There is a low-cost access of $25 per person for all other educators statewide and nationwide.<\/p>\n
In the 2024-2025 school year, 2,600 educators completed the 10-hour Science of Reading Intro Course, including 2,100 teachers in New York City public schools. According to survey results, participants showed a 34% increase in science of reading knowledge, and a 10% increase in linguistic knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Staten Island elementary school is working to change the way students are learning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-73176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}