About half of Texas students read below grade level, but when teachers craft lessons to help them, they often rely on instructional materials that aren’t rigorous enough.
Many teachers use search engines to help them develop their lessons, and if you Google “fifth grade reading materials,” a story called Tuttle the Turtle comes up. That passage reflects more of a third-grade reading level than that of a fifth-grade student, Texas’ top education official said.
Students need to be exposed to grade-level lessons, full of new ideas and vocabulary, to become good readers, emphasized Education Commissioner Mike Morath.
The Texas Education Agency spent about three years testing a set of state-specific reading instructional materials, which it made public Wednesday. The lessons are highly structured, aligned to state standards and accessible for all teachers to download, free of charge, Morath said.
“This was built from the ground up for Texas,” he said.
Temple ISD Superintendent Bobby Ott, whose schools tested the educational materials, said the lessons “led to double-digit increases in the percentage of our students reading at grade level.”
Related:STAAR results: Texas students’ reading performance stable, math seeing growth
The instructional materials “represent a major step forward in providing our students with access to rich reading lessons that integrate history, literature, science, and the arts, while ensuring that students receive instruction grounded in phonics and the science of teaching.” of reading,” Ott said in a statement.
The State Board of Education will likely vote on the lessons in November, along with textbooks from several other publishers. If members give their seal of approval, it will allow districts to take advantage of additional state funds intended to encourage schools to use educational materials of proven high quality.
Texas schools have wide latitude in selecting lesson plans and can obtain their materials from a variety of publishers. Local districts would not be required to use the state product.
The materials are called Open Educational Resources textbooks. The public can read them and offer comments on the agency’s website until August. Teams of teachers and instructional experts will also review them as part of the state process.
“’Open’ means it’s owned by taxpayers. It’s free for people to use and as a state we can edit it over time,” Morath said.
The commissioner added that the educational materials are intended to reflect Texas values. In a sample of the pages reviewed by The Dallas Morning News, religious information was woven into several lessons.
Too often, Morath said, the instructional materials used by teachers are not aligned with what state officials have decided students should learn. An agency study of 27 school districts found that only 19% of elementary reading assignments were at grade level or above.
Open Educational Resources (OER) were created to meet those standards, Morath said.
For example, instead of Tuttle the Turtle, he said fifth graders should read complex passages about the Italian Renaissance, something that introduces them to new ideas and complex vocabulary words.
“It’s no more than a fifth grader. It is not inferior to a fifth grader,” she said. “It’s a grade-level appropriate text.”
What could Texas students learn?
In the younger grades, the new lesson plans are explicit about how students should be taught to read. Morath said they are based on what is known as the Science of Reading, which focuses on the core sounds that make up words based on research on the way the brain decodes language.
Texas has emphasized this approach in recent years, requiring all kindergarten through third-grade teachers to complete a “Reading Academy” focused on science-backed strategies. After pandemic setbacks, reading scores rebounded.
Related: Is Texas’ Big Reading Boost Enough to Offset Pandemic Losses? This is how a district helps students
The new teaching materials are also designed to create layers of knowledge. In kindergarten, students will do a unit on the five senses. Then in second grade, they will read about the human body and nutrition. Next year, they will delve deeper into reading about the body systems.
Reading lessons are designed to spiral into other topic areas: Passages on nutrition leverage science. Units on the Italian Renaissance relate to social studies.
Like all Texas teaching materials, they must comply with what is known as the state’s “anticritical race theory” law.
Related: Texas approves social studies adjustments to comply with anti-criticism of race theory law
The law prohibits teaching certain concepts about race. He urges educators to teach only that slavery and racism are “deviations” from America’s founding principles, even though several of the Founding Fathers owned slaves.
It also states that teachers cannot “demand an understanding of the 1619 Project,” a New York Times award-winning initiative that sought to reframe American history around the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black people.
“We want to make sure it’s a good reflection of Texas values, fully built for Texas and our legal environment and our standards,” Morath said.
The News has not reviewed the thousands of pages of educational materials. The agency provided The News with a snapshot of some lesson plans.
A preview of the second-grade reading units shows lessons titled “The Problem of Slavery,” “The Great Awakenings and the Founders,” and “The Abolitionists.”
Some religious values are woven into the lessons, like a kindergarten unit on “The Golden Rule.”
“Jesus said that the Golden Rule sums up, or combines, all the other rules described throughout the Bible into one: ‘So in everything, do to others as you would have done to yourself,’” read in a lesson.
Officials said religious context can give students the ability to more deeply understand literary references and historical events.
For example, students learn about biblical allusions in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Lessons are accompanied by a standard letter that can be sent to families to alert them to what students are learning in class. Units are available for parents to review online, in accordance with state standards.
Building on feedback from the pilot, state officials reinforced reading lessons focused on World War II and the Holocaust.
Structured learning
The lessons from the state’s new resource may sound familiar to Dallas teachers.
This year, the district launched new district-wide instructional materials called Amplify that include structured plans for how teachers move through the classroom.
Provides detailed outlines for class discussions, vocabulary word review, and readings in assigned time periods.
Related:New Dallas lessons aim to keep kids on track, but some worry about limiting teachers
Amplify provided the Texas Education Agency with a framework for its new materials, but state officials revamped much of the content and readings. Morath said Open Education Resources are a product of Texas, not Amplify.
In Dallas, Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said that before implementing this type of instruction districtwide, the quality of lessons students received varied across Dallas ISD. Teachers used different lesson plans and moved at different paces, something that was particularly challenging for children who changed schools mid-year.
The structured nature of the lessons “can benefit both new and experienced teachers,” said Ott, the Temple superintendent.
“For teachers new to the profession, having a roadmap can be invaluable for what to teach and how to teach the content,” he said.
A new state law provides districts with a stipend ($40 per student) to support the use of high-quality lessons.
The State Board of Education will vote not only on Open Education Resources, but also on a wide range of educational materials submitted.
The DMN Education Lab deepens coverage and conversation on pressing educational issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, supported by Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions. Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of Education Lab journalism.
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