Woodburn School District presents plan to increase third grade literacy

Published 8:00 am Thursday, November 21, 2024

The Woodburn School District is aiming for improvement.

The district has released new goals and plans for increasing student’s proficiency in state academic areas.

At a Nov. 12 school board meeting, a school monitoring plan presented by the district specified how it aims to increase literacy, most specifically for third graders.

Woodburn School District test scores

The new plan comes shortly after Woodburn School District’s recently released standardized test scores, which were among the lowest in the state.

Woodburn School District students scored well below the state average in English language arts, math and science for the 2023-24 school year.

Across all grade levels in the district, just 17% of students tested were proficient in English language arts. Approximately 9% of students — less than one in 10 — received proficient scores in math, and 12% met state standards in science.

The school district’s third graders specifically scored the second lowest in the state in English language arts compared to other third graders— performing better than only the Falls City School District in Polk County.

The district’s plan

The district’s new literacy goal is to have 19% of third graders reading on grade level — just under one in five — a significant increase from the 2023-34 school year outcomes.

The district plans to increase this percentage through an multiprong elementary reading plan, including tenants like:

• Science of Reading training throughout the year,
• All K-5 teachers and K-1 education assistants focusing on literacy,
• Early literacy interventions with a reading specialist,
• K-1 parent literacy nights,
• And grade-level educators implementing Language Bridging lessons.
• Washington Elementary School Principal Alfredo Belanger, who helped present on third-grade literacy, expressed enthusiasm for the Science of Reading training.

“This has been a big shift in the way that we teach reading,” said Belanger. “Our previous approach was more of a whole language approach, and this one is dividing instruction into word reading and comprehension and is addressing some of the things a lot of the school districts around the nation were struggling with.”

Superintendent Juan Larios also prefaced that there is more than meets the eye with the current literacy data, stating that many students in lower grades are still learning primarily in a language different from English.

“So, as stated, our goal is to be 19% of our students reading on grade level in the state assessment, which is done in English,” he said. “Many of our students are dual language students and are learning primarily at the early literacy grade levels in a language other than English.”

As Larios prefaced, while the reading scores do reveal some academic struggles within the district, standardized test results often don’t paint the complete picture.

In the 2022-23 school year, approximately 42% of students in the Woodburn School District were English learners, the highest percentage of current English learners of any school district in Oregon.

At Woodburn schools, elementary students in the dual language program begin school learning primarily in Spanish or Russian. They then gradually receive increased English instruction until fourth grade, when they start to spend equal time in both languages.

“One impact of this model is that students may still be developing some of the skills in English that are on the third-grade reading assessment measure,” the Woodburn School District said in an earlier statement regarding test scores.

Despite the lower reading assessment scores, the district administration expressed optimism for the literacy plan moving forward.

“I really think that we are going to be making gains this year. I have full faith,” said Belanger.