Monroe Elementary is focused on phonics

When it comes to teaching elementary children, one of the most important skills to build is the ability to read. And when it comes to teaching reading, Monroe Elementary is building on a phonics-based system and finding new ways to help students succeed.

Several members of Monroe's staff spoke to the Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees at Tuesday night's meeting to share more information about the Sounds to Spelling program the school has been using.

"I really do think that we're going to start seeing huge improvements with our reading scores because of this phonics program," Shelena Nichelson, a reading specialist at the school, told the board.

Principal Mike Aimone explained that Monroe has been using the program for about two and a half years. The program was chosen in an effort to be more systematic about teaching reading, and was tied to the district's goals and connected to the school's resources.

Aimone said that the school is also working through Marzano's Model of Instruction from The New Art of Science and Teaching by Robert J.Marzano. This model presents 43 elements of good teaching, and this year Monroe chose two elements to focus on: providing scales and rubrics to provide more clarity, such as with the phonics program, as well as "building relationships through understanding students' backgrounds and interests," Aimone explained.

Anne Marie Anderson told the board that using proficiency scales helps nail down the concept of where staff wants kids to be in their learning. The next step is to focus on responding when kids aren't getting where they should be and using that information to target groups and skills. It's also important to look at how staff's actions and goals impact the system, not just for one grade but the whole school.

After the staff had many conversations, they worked on goals to focus on giving students more repetition and providing the modeling and extra instruction they need, leveraging Tier One and Tier Two instruction, Anderson explained.

"We decided that we really didn't need one more thing to do, but [focused on] trying to figure out our thing and doing it better," Anderson said.

When it comes to Tier One learning, Kelly McCully gave more detail on how the Sounds to Spelling program is being used in the classroom.

She shared a quote by Dr. Martin Kozloff which explains "If a child memorizes ten words, the child can read only ten words, but if the child learns the sounds of ten letters, the child will be able to read 350 three-sound words, 4,320 four-sound words, and 21,650 five-sound words."

Following the principal of the importance of learning phonics for reading, Sounds to Spelling "is a systematic and explicit approach to reading," McCully said. "It has a clear scope and sequence for K2 to learn how to read. Everything they need to know is in this. It starts with teaching letters and sounds, moves to words and also spelling patterns. We all know that kiddos learn at different rates, but they're going to follow the same trajectory." 

Learning with phonics activates three parts of the brain by focusing on a word's sound, meaning, and spelling, McCully explained. Starting with strong phonics also leads to good decoding and better fluency and comprehension later, she said.

At Monroe, every student receives a full hour of phonics instruction in the classroom, according to McCully, and then they're broken into intervention groups to work on any skills that they're lacking.

Shelena Nichelson shared more information about Tier Two learning through intervention groups. As a reading specialist, she works with students who "need an extra dose of reading."

Part of Nichelson's focus is making sure the phonics being worked on in small intervention groups are aligned with the lessons students are being taught in the classroom in order to reinforce skills. Working with the same systematic program that teachers are using helps those in intervention not have to second guess their teaching. This is especially useful since intervention groups only have about five to 10 minutes to work on phonics, according to Nichelson.

Another program Monroe implemented this year is a peer tutoring program that pairs kindergarteners with a responsible older student from fourth or fifth grade. The students are able to go over sounds, read together, and generally give younger students even more practice with reading.

"It's just really, really cool to see as a system," Nichelson said. "We're working in the classroom, we're working intervention, we're working as student with student. As a system I feel like Monroe [is] headed to the right direction."