MRIN IN THE NEWS

Brad's Beat: A Focus on Hartford Public Schools

By Elizabeth Brad Noel
Reprinted from The Hartford News, January 4 , 2006

Brad's Beat returns to the air with an hour-long special on the Haskins Early Reading Success at Rawson School. When asked if they are reading at home, first grade, first grade children are boasting, "We are reading chapter books!" What is the secret? With cameraman Arthur Querido we visited Rawson classrooms to find out.

At the invitation of Rawson principal Gerald Martin, Linda Liss-Bronstein, a Haskins Reading Specialist and Mentor has been working with Rawson teachers, providing research-based training in strategies to develop phonic awareness, word fluency and recognition with a focus on story structure and comprehension.

First grade teacher Sharon Flowers was preparing her students lo read the poem Dreams by Langston Hughes. The lesson began by analyzing the structure of individual words. "Dream" is a double vowel word. "Fast" is a closed syllable word, and "life" has a magic e. Multi-syllable words were first divided - fro - zen and bro - ken, and then read without the break - frozen and broken. These first grade students were able to read and understand multi­syllable words such as migration and hibernation. At the end of the lesson they read together Langston Hughes' poem.

Marisa Garcia, another Rawson teacher of first grade believes what she has been learning from the Haskins research makes a good teacher great.

Her class was reading the story Small Pig with props to help tell the story. The children were asked about the changing emotions and settings of the story so they can recognize cause and efect. Emotion props contained words such as shocked, scared, elated, delighted, relieved. The children read these words and associated them with the events in the story. As they then re-told the story using the props, it was clear that their decoding as well as comprehension skills were being developed.

Haskins Laboratory in New Haven recognizes that teaching reading is "rocket science." Too many teachers have not received the training in research-based brain development reading instruction to achieve success with all their students.

With assistance from Haskins reading specialists Linda Liss-Bronstein and Margie Gillis first grade teachers at Rawson as well as other Hartford pilot schools have seen remarkable success. Last year, 86.2% of Rawson first graders were reading at 2.1 grade level or above.

Rawson principal Gerald Martin is convinced that the added Haskins resource in his school has made a significant improvement in student achievement. Teachers embrace the strategies because they are successful. His second grade teachers, receiving the "Haskins grads" said "Wow!" These students are even writing their own poetry with improved spelling and expanded vocabulary.
Gerald Martin, Rawson teachers, Haskins reading specialists and first grade students at Rawson will be my guests on Brad's Beat on Hartford Public Access TV Channel 19 to be broadcast from 8:00 to 9:00 pm on Monday and Wednesday evening this week and the following two weeks.