The parent advocacy group says these solutions could boost Fort Worth’s low reading rates

Sandra Quintana’s daughter didn’t know her ABCs.

She knew the song. She didn’t know every single letter.

The girl was in kindergarten.

Quintana didn’t find out how far along her child was until she reached out to the Parent Shield Literacy is Freedom Texas program, an initiative the parent advocacy group launched over the summer to help sixth-graders read on grade level.

Free 10-week intervention program helped 52 students — almost all reading below grade level — advance at least one grade level during the initiative’s three months, according to a new report released Oct. 29. Parent Shield sees the program as a solution to Fort Worth’s low reading rates, but the biggest hurdle is cost, the organization’s leaders said.

More than half of the children who live in Fort Worth they cannot read at their grade levelaccording to a Fort Worth Education Partnership report.

In Fort Worth ISD, the city’s largest school district, approximately 1 in 3 students read at grade level.

Children in Fort Worth need meaningful solutions, said Parent Shield Executive Director Trenace Dorsey-Hollins.

“Just telling them to read to your kids at home is not the answer,” Dorsey-Hollins said. “We have to dig a little deeper than reading. We have to make an intervention. We have to do what works.”

Over the summer at two Tarrant County Boys & Girls Clubs, Parent Shield interventionists played word matching games and made reading fun for elementary students like Quintana’s daughter and third grader Olivia Dawson.

Dorsey-Hollins said most parents involved in the program had no idea their children’s reading problems were so pronounced.

When Nancy Horne, Olivia’s mother, noticed that her then-first grade daughter was struggling with reading, she didn’t have the time or resources to tutor her children. She couldn’t have afforded to hire one either, she said. Instead, she used a new connection to intervene. Juanita Aldama, a program interventionist, stepped in to provide support.

The high-dose tutoring program, which ended June 27, provided structured reading intervention twice a week during the school year and four days a week during the summer.

The curriculum, taught in groups of three based on age or reading level, was filled with lessons on word pronunciation and sentence structure. Dorsey-Hollins said the program’s focus on small-group instruction may also have made a difference.

Each session lasted 45 minutes, with the last 15 minutes spent talking with parents about their students’ progress. Each week, teachers sent updates to parents and informed them about tools and resources they could use at home.

The program cost about $1,300 per student, Dorsey-Hollins said.

Aldama, who was responsible for 12 of the 25 students split between the two locations, saw an obvious increase in her students’ confidence.

The Parent Shield report found that 90% of parents noticed that their students were more confident in their ability to read.

“I’ve seen reading come easier for them, and it’s so rewarding to see kids excited about reading and learning,” Aldama said.

Dorsey-Hollins emphasized that the program’s results are replicable for Fort Worth school districts. School districts have students much longer than the 10 weeks of the Parent Shield program.

“We know that with schools having three times as many of our kids, they should be able to grow at least two to three years with a targeted intervention,” Dorsey-Hollins said.

Student pre-assessments were essential to give teachers and parents a starting point of students’ abilities, Dorsey-Hollins said.

School districts already do this, but they don’t necessarily provide it to parents in an accessible and understandable way, she said. Dorsey-Hollins pointed to Fort Worth ISD and its use Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progressor MAP, test as an example. MAP tracks students’ academic progress throughout the school year.

“But how is that MAP data shared with our parents? Is it shared in a way that they are able to understand it and know how to apply those tools to their children’s everyday learning?” Dorsey-Hollins said.

School districts must integrate high-dose literacy instruction into traditional classroom instruction time, according to Parent Shield recommendations. Combining MAP data with high-quality interventions and transparency for families will result in a significant increase in readmission, Dorsey-Hollins said.

Dorsey-Hollins acknowledged that the work can be difficult, but she has heard from teachers who often have entire classrooms full of students who need reading intervention. Classroom teaching is the right time to train students, she said.

Interim Superintendent Karen Molinarhis plan to implement Fort Worth ISD central administration staff to work directly with students will go a long way to ensure all students receive the interventions they deserve, the Parent Shield leader said.

Fort Worth mom Quintana has seen her children’s attitudes toward reading change. Her children thought books were boring when they first started the intervention program. Halfway through, they enjoyed reading and thought it was fun.

They even brought books for their mother to read.

Quintana wanted to read the stories but struggles to read and write.

Quintana moved to the US from Mexico when she was 7 years old and had to learn English. He struggled in school because he has ADHD, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. She didn’t know she had a developmental disorder until later in life.

“Back then I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t understand or retain anything in my brain,” Quintana said.

Growing up, Quintana was afraid to tell teachers and even her mother about her learning difficulties.

“So we never got the help we needed,” Quintana said.

School became too difficult once Quintana reached high school. He dropped out in the 10th grade.

Quintana did not want her children to go through life like her. She wanted better.

Now, her children can’t get enough of reading. Although Parent Shield’s program has ended, Quintana wants to make sure her kids keep their spark for reading burning.

“I don’t care if I have to drive as long as I can take my kids to learn something I couldn’t teach them,” she said.

Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected] or @_jacob_sanchez.

Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected] or @matthewsgroi1.

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This article first appeared on The Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.