Aldine ISD Revamps Literacy Program to Increase Students’ Opportunities to Learn

The district makes bold changes to shift teaching and culture to improve students’ reading skills. Aldine is the first school district in Texas to move to the new literacy model.

During the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the Aldine Independent School District created a Literacy Task Force. Their objective was clear: improve reading skills to ensure students are reading on grade level. This was in response to a recent audit, and the results of the 2019 STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) showed that only 29% of AlSD third-graders scored proficiently on the reading tests.

“This was a wakeup call to everyone,” Goffney said. “Less than 30% of third-graders were reading on grade level. This is not acceptable. We know that students who read on grade level by the end of the third grade are more likely to succeed in school in different areas of study. If they are not reading on grade level, we as educators do not fulfill our promise to students: fostering and demonstrating learning and success. We knew we had to make changes.”

The Literacy Task Force, headed by Chief of Academics Dr. Todd M. Davis, reviewed what was working and what wasn’t. Eight schools — five elementary and two middle school campuses — trained literacy teachers to pilot a program. The task force monitored the progress over nine months.

“We developed a stronger, more enhanced teaching and learning program framework that is coherent across all subject areas, but the crux or most important part was revamping our reading and literacy instruction and our method and practice of teaching,” Chief Academic Officer Dr. Todd M. Davis. “This new approach will increase equity and increase reading levels for all our students. We want all of our students reading confidently by third grade.”

The district has adopted Amplify’s integrated early literacy suite, built on reading science, to support all students’ learning. Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs. It’s an early literacy suite — includes the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) curriculum and the mCLASS® Texas Edition reading assessment and intervention program.

“We are proud to work with a team that is all in and committed to a clear vision,” stated Raymundo Rodríguez, a regional vice president of sales at Amplify. “They are passionate about the work, deliberate in their approach, and focused on their objective to ensure that every child can read.”

Amplify CKLA is a top-rated core curriculum. It combines rich, diverse content in history, science, literature, and the arts with systematic, research-based foundational skills instruction for PreK–5 English language arts.

The mCLASS Texas Edition is a comprehensive assessment with DIBELS® 8th Edition, which is a battery of short (one-minute) fluency (English speakers, Spanish speakers, and students with dyslexia) measures that can be used for universal screening, benchmark assessment, and progress monitoring in kindergarten through eighth grade. The suite aligns with Tier 2 and 3 interventions.

mCLASS Texas Edition, a full K–6 assessment solution, is one of the only two programs recently approved by the Texas Education Agency as a kindergarten diagnostic and dyslexia screener.

“We were looking for a new approach to literacy that included a systematic process for teaching phonics and a curriculum,” Stephen ‘Matt’ Walford, executive director of literacy, said. “It had to be something that would strengthen student comprehension through knowledge and vocabulary development. Aldine selected Amplify early literacy suite for these reasons, but also because it allows us to connect assessment to measure literacy development and provide intervention for struggling readers reliably.”

Since the 2020 spring semester, the country and the world have been impacted by two significant issues — the coronavirus pandemic and racism. Those affected the greatest by COVID-19 have been people of color and low-income communities. Historically, many people of color have experienced and endured racism. They and their communities usually don’t have the same education, choices, and opportunities their white counterparts typically experience. Recent events have highlighted significant disparities — health, education, salaries, equity — between white and people of color. Superintendent Dr. LaTonya M. Goffney stated that the district’s new literacy approach would increase efficacy and equity.

“We are dealing with a dual pandemic,” Superintendent Dr. LaTonya M. Goffney said. “The pandemic of COVID-19 and the pandemic of racism. The way forward is through literacy, a basic human right. For this reason, we are taking a very focused, research-based approach to our reading instruction, ensuring that all of our students get the support they need to become skilled and confident readers by third grade, thereby multiplying their chances and opportunities in school, college, and life.”

Aldine is the first school district in Texas to move to the literacy model.