Leading in Literacy
With a transformational $23 million endowment headed its way, the Cato College of Education, the state’s top-rated preparer of reading educators, continues to address the real challenges to ensure a literate future.
By Wills Citty
Details are like flowers to our tree,” explains UNC Charlotte senior Caitlin McGennis to a class of third graders. For emphasis, she glides her arms open.
Smiling students are sitting in front of McGennis at Berewick Elementary School, located in south Charlotte. Curiosity and enthusiasm, characteristic of great elementary school classrooms, simmer. But there is a hint of concern as serious business must be addressed.
These kids are trying to save Fun Friday.
According to a letter the class read with McGennis the day before, Principal Kim King has canceled the beloved Berewick Elementary School pastime. It’s now up to the class to develop the moving pleas and savvy arguments that will convince the administration to restore the students’ right to relax at the end of the week.
McGennis, a dual elementary and special education major attending Charlotte on scholarship to teach reading, is leading her class in an interactive persuasive writing activity that will help them make their case. One that is an important part of the students’ journey to lifelong literacy and in their student teacher’s development of skills essential to success in the classroom.
In her final semesters at UNC Charlotte, McGennis is being directed toward more opportunities to apply what she’s learned and practice her craft through a curriculum that has been hands-on since she arrived at the Cato College of Education. An out-of-state student, McGennis arrived at the University from Pittsburgh for Charlotte’s elite dual-degree program in special education and elementary education.
Over the course of the writing lesson at Berewick Elementary, McGennis floats between groups to listen for student understanding and review their progress.
“T – A – P . . . topic, audience, parameters. We underline the topic, star the audience, and tap the parameters.” She stops to repeat and invites the young readers to join in: “Topic, audience, parameters.”
By learning mnemonic devices to understand the elements of a persuasive piece of writing, students are gathering the building blocks they need to become independent readers and critical thinkers.
RELATED CONTENT
A Word
Caitlin McGennis
“The activity is an extension of self-regulated strategy development. It shows students’ deliberate skill practice that lifts writing quality. It also helps teachers see growth in literacy outcomes and student independence when completing work. Literacy is sometimes thought of as only reading instruction. Writing plays a big role, too.”
Clear goals, challenging realities
The North Carolina Read to Achieve Program, codified by the North Carolina General Assembly, outlines the “goal of the state is to ensure that every student read at or above grade level by the end of third grade and continue to progress in reading proficiency so that he or she can read, comprehend, integrate and apply complex texts needed for secondary education and career success.”
It’s a standard that’s simple enough in theory but has proven challenging for the state and nation to meet. Across the country, only one in three fourth grade students is meeting expectations for reading proficiency, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
North Carolina students fall in line with national trends with 32% of fourth graders reading proficiently. The lagging numbers are particularly concerning because being able to read proficiently early in life is a strong predictor of student success down the road.
By the fourth grade and beyond, students who aren’t reading on grade level fall further behind, eventually becoming six times more likely to drop out of high school than their proficient peers.
Content knowledge is critical
Kristen Beach, an associate professor of special education at UNC Charlotte, has devoted her career untangling the knots surrounding early literacy.
Beyond the long-standing debate about the importance of phonics instruction versus that of language and content instruction — both critical to reading proficiency — she cites complex individual and societal factors also as contributors.
“Few kids intuit reading. Reading proficiently, with strong comprehension, is a learned skill. It is multifaceted and complex, and although there are some usual suspects that we can point to in identifying the source of reading difficulties, the reasons any child is not reading proficiently may be different from one child to the next,” said Beach. “When it comes to reading words, difficulties with phonemic awareness — or the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds in words — almost always leads to reading challenges.”
According to Beach, explicit instruction in foundational reading skills, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading, fluency, aspects of vocabulary and comprehension, can make a dramatic difference for all kids and especially for children who are reading below grade level. “Exposing students to rich content and teaching vocabulary explicitly in early childhood, even before they enter school, can make a big difference in the knowledge that a child brings to a text.”
From student teacher to classroom leader
McGennis, who is scheduled to graduate in May 2024, will become the third in her family to teach. She is driven to guide children to discover one of life’s greatest gifts: the ability to read.
After saving Fun Friday with her students at Berewick Elementary, she is eager to lead a class of her own in the fall.
“My mother was my first teacher — literally,” she recalled. “I would watch her in the classroom working with students and see the impact she had on them. She always encouraged me to help other students when they needed it and to recognize when it was best to sit back and watch the magic of learning occur in a young mind. I will never forget watching the faces of the children who grasped what they were learning and the pride found in that success. That look is priceless.”
Learn about UNC Charlotte’s community-based literacy programs:
Summer Reading Camps
Since 2016, six-week, research-based summer reading camps have offered students from seven area elementary schools opportunities to enhance their reading skills. The camps, which have been effective in reducing or preventing summer learning loss, give teachers in the region and future teachers the ability to learn and practice evidence-based teaching techniques. Since 2019, the Mebane Early Literacy Center has invested $50,000 annually in Charlotte’s summer reading program.
Project ENRICH
Engaging Niners in a Reading Intervention and Collaboration Hub, funded by the Mebane Foundation, provides year-round, evidence-based tutoring to elementary school students who underperform in reading. It offers pre-service teachers a bridge between gaining experience through summer reading camps and Belk Foundation-funded programming that supports several future-teacher development opportunities.
Wills Citty is director of communications for the Cato College of Education.
LEADING IN LITERACY
With a transformational $23 million endowment headed its way, the Cato College of Education, the state’s top-rated preparer of reading educators, continues to address the real challenges to ensure a literate future.
By Wills Citty
Details are like flowers to our tree,” explains UNC Charlotte senior Caitlin McGennis to a class of third graders. For emphasis, she glides her arms open.
Smiling students are sitting in front of McGennis at Berewick Elementary School, located in south Charlotte. Curiosity and enthusiasm, characteristic of great elementary school classrooms, simmer. But there is a hint of concern as serious business must be addressed.
These kids are trying to save Fun Friday.
According to a letter the class read with McGennis the day before, Principal Kim King has canceled the beloved Berewick Elementary School pastime. It’s now up to the class to develop the moving pleas and savvy arguments that will convince the administration to restore the students’ right to relax at the end of the week.
McGennis, a dual elementary and special education major attending Charlotte on scholarship to teach reading, is leading her class in an interactive persuasive writing activity that will help them make their case. One that is an important part of the students’ journey to lifelong literacy and in their student teacher’s development of skills essential to success in the classroom.
In her final semesters at UNC Charlotte, McGennis is being directed toward more opportunities to apply what she’s learned and practice her craft through a curriculum that has been hands-on since she arrived at the Cato College of Education. An out-of-state student, McGennis arrived at the University from Pittsburgh for Charlotte’s elite dual-degree program in special education and elementary education.
Over the course of the writing lesson at Berewick Elementary, McGennis floats between groups to listen for student understanding and review their progress.
“T – A – P . . . topic, audience, parameters. We underline the topic, star the audience, and tap the parameters.” She stops to repeat and invites the young readers to join in: “Topic, audience, parameters.”
By learning mnemonic devices to understand the elements of a persuasive piece of writing, students are gathering the building blocks they need to become independent readers and critical thinkers.
RELATED CONTENT
A Word
Caitlin McGennis
“The activity is an extension of self-regulated strategy development. It shows students’ deliberate skill practice that lifts writing quality. It also helps teachers see growth in literacy outcomes and student independence when completing work. Literacy is sometimes thought of as only reading instruction. Writing plays a big role, too.”
Clear goals, challenging realities
The North Carolina Read to Achieve Program, codified by the North Carolina General Assembly, outlines the “goal of the state is to ensure that every student read at or above grade level by the end of third grade and continue to progress in reading proficiency so that he or she can read, comprehend, integrate and apply complex texts needed for secondary education and career success.”
It’s a standard that’s simple enough in theory but has proven challenging for the state and nation to meet. Across the country, only one in three fourth grade students is meeting expectations for reading proficiency, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
North Carolina students fall in line with national trends with 32% of fourth graders reading proficiently. The lagging numbers are particularly concerning because being able to read proficiently early in life is a strong predictor of student success down the road.
By the fourth grade and beyond, students who aren’t reading on grade level fall further behind, eventually becoming six times more likely to drop out of high school than their proficient peers.
Content knowledge is critical
Kristen Beach, an associate professor of special education at UNC Charlotte, has devoted her career untangling the knots surrounding early literacy.
Beyond the long-standing debate about the importance of phonics instruction versus that of language and content instruction — both critical to reading proficiency — she cites complex individual and societal factors also as contributors.
“Few kids intuit reading. Reading proficiently, with strong comprehension, is a learned skill. It is multifaceted and complex, and although there are some usual suspects that we can point to in identifying the source of reading difficulties, the reasons any child is not reading proficiently may be different from one child to the next,” said Beach. “When it comes to reading words, difficulties with phonemic awareness — or the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds in words — almost always leads to reading challenges.”
According to Beach, explicit instruction in foundational reading skills, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, word reading, fluency, aspects of vocabulary and comprehension, can make a dramatic difference for all kids and especially for children who are reading below grade level. “Exposing students to rich content and teaching vocabulary explicitly in early childhood, even before they enter school, can make a big difference in the knowledge that a child brings to a text.”
From student teacher to classroom leader
McGennis, who is scheduled to graduate in May 2024, will become the third in her family to teach. She is driven to guide children to discover one of life’s greatest gifts: the ability to read.
After saving Fun Friday with her students at Berewick Elementary, she is eager to lead a class of her own in the fall.
“My mother was my first teacher — literally,” she recalled. “I would watch her in the classroom working with students and see the impact she had on them. She always encouraged me to help other students when they needed it and to recognize when it was best to sit back and watch the magic of learning occur in a young mind. I will never forget watching the faces of the children who grasped what they were learning and the pride found in that success. That look is priceless.”
Learn about UNC Charlotte’s community-based literacy programs:
Summer Reading Camps
Since 2016, six-week, research-based summer reading camps have offered students from seven area elementary schools opportunities to enhance their reading skills. The camps, which have been effective in reducing or preventing summer learning loss, give teachers in the region and future teachers the ability to learn and practice evidence-based teaching techniques. Since 2019, the Mebane Early Literacy Center has invested $50,000 annually in Charlotte’s summer reading program.
Project ENRICH
Engaging Niners in a Reading Intervention and Collaboration Hub, funded by the Mebane Foundation, provides year-round, evidence-based tutoring to elementary school students who underperform in reading. It offers pre-service teachers a bridge between gaining experience through summer reading camps and Belk Foundation-funded programming that supports several future-teacher development opportunities.
Wills Citty is director of communications for the Cato College of Education.