Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: The reading gap among school children in this country is disturbing.

  • Fewer than 40 percent of fourth and eighth graders are considered proficient readers.

  • There is a push to change how students are taught to read, and it is being led by parents

  • whose children have dyslexia.

  • Special correspondent Lisa Stark of our partner Education Week reports from Arkansas for our

  • education segment, Making the Grade.

  • LISA STARK: Meet the families who changed how every child in Arkansas will learn to

  • read, because they know what it's like for kids to struggle with reading.

  • Here's Kim Head:

  • KIM HEAD, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: My kid is crawling under the table, stomach

  • aches, doesn't want to go to school.

  • We're in tears.

  • LISA STARK: Amber Jones:

  • AMBER JONES, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: The psychological damage that happens to them

  • when they cannot figure out reading.

  • Scott Gann:

  • SCOTT GANN, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: He said, "I told you I can't read.

  • Nobody believes me."

  • LISA STARK: These families have spent thousands of dollars on educational testing and tutoring

  • to discover their children have dyslexia, a learning disability that makes it difficult

  • to spell and read.

  • It affects one in five individuals.

  • Here's Dixie Evans:

  • DIXIE EVANS, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: Not being able to get the help from your school,

  • the people that are supposed to know, that are supposed to have the answers, not being

  • able to get that help and having to go out and find it on your own.

  • AUDI ALUMBAUGH, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: The sense of urgency with us is, while

  • the schools are trying to figure their way, these kids, they don't have time to wait.

  • LISA STARK: Audi Alumbaugh has led the push to pass new state laws on reading instruction.

  • She has a niece with dyslexia.

  • AUDI ALUMBAUGH: She is not a strong reader still because of our delay in figuring out

  • what was going on, but she will be a success.

  • And I saw how it impacts every fiber of the family, which is what everybody here says.

  • And there's just no need.

  • We have a system in place to fix this.

  • LISA STARK: That system includes explicit instruction in phonics, teaching students

  • how letters and sounds go together to help the brain process the written word.

  • WOMAN: If we have the word brush, brush, an we want to take away the buh, we are left

  • with?

  • CHILDREN: Rush.

  • WOMAN: Very good.

  • SARAH SAYKO, National Center on Improving Literacy: We absolutely know that this is

  • the best way the teach children to read.

  • LISA STARK: Sarah Sayko with the National Center on Improving Literacy says this approach

  • works well for all students, not just those with dyslexia.

  • SARAH SAYKO: We know without a doubt that reading is not a natural process.

  • Reading has to be taught.

  • And it needs to be taught systematically.

  • LISA STARK: Here's what that looks like at Springhill Elementary in Greenbrier, Arkansas,

  • where students with characteristics of dyslexia get intensive reading instruction.

  • CHILDREN: Rain.

  • WOMAN: Rain.

  • Oh, I tried to trick you all on that one.

  • Very good.

  • LISA STARK: Why are you in those groups?

  • Do you know?

  • What's that for?

  • Dan, do you want to say something about that?

  • DANI FULMER, Student: To help us spell better, I think.

  • LISA STARK: What about you, Cord?

  • CORD BEAIRD, STUDENT: Read better.

  • ACE NEWLAND, Student: Write better.

  • LISA STARK: Ace, Cord, and Dani are taught the use their senses of touch, feel, and movement

  • to help imprint words into their brains.

  • ACE NEWLAND: And like pounding tapping helps me like write it.

  • LISA STARK: So it helps to pound the word out and tap the word out?

  • ACE NEWLAND: Yes.

  • LISA STARK: And why is that, do you think?

  • ACE NEWLAND: Because you're sounding out each letter.

  • LISA STARK: And letters become words.

  • Words become stories.

  • Reading is no longer something to avoid.

  • CORD BEAIRD: And then now I know a lot about reading.

  • And when I go to chapter book, I will get stuck on big words.

  • DANI FULMER: I would like to see words.

  • And I would like to just see them and say, oh, I know that word, and then just keep on

  • reading.

  • LISA STARK: Are you able to do that at all yet?

  • DANI FULMER: Some words.

  • LISA STARK: For those who can't read well by the end of third grade, there are lifelong

  • consequences, including higher school dropout and poverty rates.

  • Arkansas ranks in the bottom third of states when it comes to reading, and this group is

  • determined to change that.

  • They have fought for laws to transform reading instruction, often battling an education establishment

  • resistant to change, says Dallas Green.

  • DALLAS GREEN, Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group: They didn't want us around.

  • They would see us at educational things, and it would be like, oh, lord, here they are.

  • LISA STARK: But perseverance paid off.

  • Seven years and at least eight bills later, Arkansas is revamping everything, from dyslexia

  • screening, to reading instruction, to teacher take and licensing, costing the state $6 million

  • a year.

  • STACY SMITH, Arkansas Department of Education: Statewide, we have embraced this.

  • And it's not been easy.

  • LISA STARK: Not easy, but a watershed moment, says Stacy Smith, who oversees curriculum

  • and instruction in Arkansas.

  • STACY SMITH: When we saw schools who started implementing dyslexia programs, kind of more

  • school-wide, and all of a sudden their reading literacy results were improving, it was kind

  • of that moment of, wait a second, not all these kids are dyslexic.

  • LISA STARK: This type of reading instruction is the most beneficial for early readers.

  • That was the conclusion of the federally appointed National Reading Panel nearly two decades

  • ago.

  • STACY SMITH: So, there is actual scientific evidence about how students learn to read.

  • And it's largely been ignored.

  • LISA STARK: Ignored largely because of years of ideological fights over how to best teach

  • reading.

  • Should lessons be heavy with phonics or steeped in good literature?

  • Smith says sure kids of course need time with good books, but from what she's seen in Arkansas,

  • the first step is comprehensive phonics instruction.

  • That's why the state is moving to teach every student this way.

  • STACY SMITH: Golly, you think, what have we done?

  • What have we done for generations to kids that we didn't really teach to read?

  • LISA STARK: Arkansas is now retraining thousands of its educators who were never taught this

  • method of teaching.

  • MIRANDA MAHAN, Teacher: When I first started teaching, I honestly didn't know how to teach

  • kids to read.

  • I didn't.

  • I taught them some sight words.

  • I taught them the letters and what sounds they make.

  • And I hoped that they put it all together.

  • Rush.

  • LISA STARK: Teacher Miranda Mahan no longer has to hope.

  • She knows kids are learning to read.

  • MIRANDA MAHAN: I know that we're sending better readers to first grade now than we did, and

  • first grade's going to send better readers to second grade.

  • And I feel that there's not going to be as many students fall through the cracks.

  • LISA STARK: This is happening around the country, with parents leading the way.

  • Over 40 states have laws, pilot programs, or bills ready to be signed around reading

  • and dyslexia.

  • But the requirements and mandates vary widely.

  • In Arkansas, by the school year 2021, all elementary and special ed teachers must show

  • that they know how to teach reading based on the science.

  • At Springhill, they will beat that deadline.

  • For principal Stephanie Worthey, this is personal.

  • Remember that student Ace Newland?

  • That's her son.

  • STEPHANIE WORTHEY, Principal, Springhill Elementary: I was an educator.

  • And I struggled with my own child.

  • And had this not come out and I was able to learn about dyslexia, I wouldn't even have

  • been able to help my own child, rather less a whole building full of children.

  • LISA STARK: So is this new approach working?

  • Let's go to the source.

  • ACE NEWLAND: Reading is kind of fun for me now that I know how and stuff.

  • LISA STARK: The efforts are still so new, they haven't yet moved the needle on state

  • tests.

  • For those pushing for the changes, there's little doubt they will.

  • Would you say that teaching your children a different way has made a difference for

  • your child?

  • WOMAN: Yes.

  • WOMAN: Yes.

  • LISA STARK: How much of a difference?

  • WOMAN: Life-changing, completely.

  • LISA STARK: Life-changing when children are truly learning to read.

  • For education week and the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Lisa Stark in Greenbrier, Arkansas.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But first: The reading gap among school children in this country is disturbing.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it