Chesterfield overhauls language-arts teaching

During language-arts instruction in Chesterfield County elementary classrooms, a teacher reads to the entire class and then breaks students into small groups according to their reading level.

"The small groups used for reading instruction allow us to personalize the reading selections enough that students are being challenged while reading on their level," Brian P. Campos, assistant principal at Elizabeth Scott Elementary School, said.

The small reading groups are part of the new language-arts program implemented at all 38 elementary schools in the fall. This is the first major overhaul of the language-arts program in 10 years.

"We've learned a lot about literacy in the past 10 years," said Sara Miller, elementary language-arts teacher consultant for the county schools. "We needed something to reflect the new knowledge of those practices and materials."

Hanover County schools have a similar language-arts program, the Literacy Diet model, which includes phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, word study, vocabulary and writing. Richmond and Henrico County schools did not respond to a request for information on their language arts programs.

Recently, four groups of students were reading and analyzing literature in Diana Reynolds' fourth-grade class. Reynolds had one group, and two others were led by an English-as-a-second-language teacher and a high school student. A fourth group of students with advanced reading levels were reading independently.

"This cuts down on some of the boredom some advanced readers may experience or frustration some lower-ability readers may encounter," Campos said.

Some of the practices in the updated program were already being used in some schools, such as the small groups, Miller said. The program includes reading, writing and word-study workshops.

The new program has students identifying letters before beginning to learn about word patterns and the students are grouped according to reading levels.

It also moves teachers and students away from traditional spelling instruction, Miller said.

"Instead of memorizing the words randomly, we're teaching students to understand the patterns of words," she said.

During reading, teachers guide students to make connections and predictions, to visualize, infer and ask questions.

Bessie Cooper, principal at Bensley Elementary School, said she began the small-group approach nine years ago, and she's glad the rest of the schools use the model.

"At some point, you have to be able to break out into small, appropriate instructional groups for kids in order for them to move from point A to point B," she said.

The approach has also been helpful with students learning English, Cooper said. About 34 percent of Bensley's students are English learners, she said. This school year, the school system got rid of its English-as-a-second-language centers and sent those students to their home schools for instruction in the classroom.

Terry Franson, county instructional specialist for ESL, observed one of the classrooms with small groups at Bensley Elementary and said she couldn't tell who the students learning English were. In the past, teachers worked in the hallway and the classrooms with English learners, she said. Now they're working together.

"Here, they're grouped and clustered according to their instructional level," she said. "All children learn language through content. They learn the content better because they're experiencing it with a content teacher who is the expert."

Inclusion is a shift in mentality for teachers, but they are now taking ownership of all students, Cooper said.

"The whole concept of inclusion is about whole ownership," she said. "These are not ESL kids, these are not special education kids. These are our kids."

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or .