$18.7 million The federal government has awarded the state Department of Education an $18.7 million grant for a program that aims to make Hawaii schoolchildren proficient readers by the third grade.
coming for kids’
reading programs
Each school will get an average
of $250,000 from the federal funding
to aid in teaching kids to readBy Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.comThe grant, from the U.S. Department of Education, is believed to be the largest that the state has received in recent years aimed directly at reading. The money will be used over the next three years to carry out the state's Reading First program. It will be directed to 90 high-poverty schools, which also have low reading scores. Each school will get an average of $250,000.
"What it will allow us to do is really focus our energies on reading," said Francine Grudzias, DOE educational administrative services director. "If you don't know how to read by the end of Grade 3, you start to go downhill, and you cannot begin to read to learn. ... It has a lifelong impact."
National reading test results indicate the federal help is needed. The 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the "Nation's Report Card," ranked Hawaii's public schools worst for reading scores among the 39 states that participated.
The Reading First program is designed to give students in the early grades the skills necessary to learn to read by the end of the third grade, officials said. The program will use research-based methods, such as phonetics, that have been shown to work in reading instruction.
The program carries out the Board of Education's literacy policy and the recently approved literacy content and performance standards.
"It's to really change the way in which we think about teaching reading," said Board of Education member Denise Matsumoto. "It's the foundation of education."
A requirement of the grant will also be to work with families to support a child's reading progress. For example, parents may be given suggestions, such as asking their child questions about a book while reading aloud.
"I want to see the whole community involved in that," Matsumoto said.
Grudzias noted: "Most of it will be behind the scenes with training. You may see new materials in the classroom, new methods in the teaching of reading, a new emphasis and maybe a longer focus.
"At parent-teacher meetings, there may be more of a discussion and an emphasis on reading."
Over the next year, the department will get organized, identify schools, identify resources, bring on more staff with experience in reading and conduct staff development.
"The real momentum will be next year -- full steam ahead next year," said Grudzias.
The grant is awarded under the Reading Excellence Act. Hawaii's Reading First program was among 13 selected nationwide to receive $327.6 million for this round of grants.
Assisting the department's educational specialist Judy McCoy in coordinating this endeavor are reading experts Edward Kameenui, a Hawaii native, and Deborah Simmons. Both are from the University of Oregon.
In October the department launched a similar program called the Reading Challenge, in which 93 schools voluntarily took up the challenge to raise reading levels using a total of $2 million in state funds.
Each school received $10,000, and in exchange they agreed to monitor their students' progress every three months and conduct professional development.
"We know (the $10,000) didn't go as far as it was needed, but we wanted to give them a boost," Grudzias said. "With the $250,000, that money will do a lot to build capacity."