Advice to the Governor: Early read

We offer advice to the next governor about education from two distinct perspectives. One of us, an academic and a founder of the literacy program ReadBoston, is alarmed by the tremendous difficulties in catching up that confront children who fall behind in reading in early elementary school. The other is a businessman concerned about the looming labor shortage in our graying state and the need to develop a skilled workforce capable of supporting one of the nation’s most sophisticated economies. Yet we reach the same conclusion: Early reading skills are crucial. Children who master reading in the earliest grades are well prepared to learn in any subject. Everything else on the educational agenda—eliminating the achievement gap, reducing the dropout rate, increasing college completion, improving science and math skills—becomes considerably easier to tackle.

Indeed, substantial evidence points to third grade reading as a powerful predictor of children’s later success in school and beyond. It is the vantage point from which to look back at the early experiences that lay the groundwork for future learning and forward to the skills children must acquire to become effective and productive citizens. Three-quarters of children who are not proficient readers by the end of third grade, research tells us, will continue to struggle in school, making them far less likely to finish high school, attend college, and contribute to our knowledge-based economy.

If we are serious about closing the achievement gap and preparing for tomorrow’s economy, the next governor must act boldly to integrate high-quality early education into the state’s broader education agenda while bolstering the primary grades.

That means recognizing that learning begins at birth and building a system of high-quality early childhood education and care. It means strengthening language and literacy instruc­tion across the disciplines in the primary grades.

On the 2010 MCAS reading test, 63 percent of Massa­chusetts third graders scored proficient or above, up from 57 percent in 2009. While the improvement is encouraging, now is not the time for complacency. More than one-third of third graders (37 percent) still read below grade level. Although the problem is more pronounced in urban districts, suburban and rural communities are not immune. Almost three-fifths (57 percent) of third graders from low-income families are not proficient readers, and neither are more than a quarter of the rest of the state’s elementary school students. This is an issue that lingers. Almost half of the nation’s high school graduates are not prepared for college level work, and 70 percent of students enrolled in remedial reading in college never graduate. The College Board warns of a generation of young adults less likely than their parents’ generation to have earned a post-secondary degree.

Research is clear that the achievement gap is evident well before children enter kindergarten. High-quality early education is one of the few educational strategies with a quantifiable positive impact on children’s language and literacy development, later academic achievement and life outcomes. Nobel laureate James Heckman and other leading economists conclude investing in high-quality early education yields a 10-16 percent rate of return in increased productivity and reduced social costs.

“Our strategy to close the achievement gap must be front-end loaded,” Medford School Superintendent Roy Belson wrote earlier this year in the MetroWest Daily News. “Our best opportunities lie with a solid investment by the state in well-coordinated early learning programs—pre-kindergarten to third grade —that address the needs of the whole child.”

In both the recently enacted state education reform law and the state’s successful Race to the Top application, the Com­monwealth has taken important first steps by including early education in such areas as data collection, turnaround schools, and the regional Readiness Centers. Who­ever takes office as governor in January can solidify our standing as a national leader by filling in this infrastructure to create a system that addresses children’s educational needs from birth. To do this, we must engage children where they are—at home, in private and public early education settings, and in schools. We must meet the needs of the growing population of English language learners as well as children whose first language is English.

Montgomery County, Maryland, a racially and economically diverse district, offers compelling lessons. Over the past decade, Montgomery County has invested in high-quality pre-kindergarten, strengthened the primary grades, and aligned both with the rest of the system. Almost 90 percent of kindergartners now start first grade well-prepared in early literacy, and almost 88 percent of third graders are proficient readers, the Pew Center on the States reports. The county’s achievement gap in third and fifth grade reading has been narrowed by more than half.

We offer the following guideposts not as a substitute for continuing to strengthen the K-12 system overall but as a solid foundation for children upon which to add the more complex demands of later grades. Too often we take a spray and pray approach to literacy, sprinkling widely interventions that sound promising. Instead, we must evaluate programs for effectiveness and depth rather than number of children and families served—and only then bring proven strategies to scale.

Family engagement

Children’s later literacy is built on the language skills they develop from birth. The governor should use the office as a bully pulpit to promote the practices—including reading aloud and ongoing rich, playful conversation—that create language-rich home environments. He should ensure that federal home visiting funds are used, as required, to foster language development as well as physical health and the prevention of abuse and neglect. He should promote policies for parental en­gagement in schools, including creating the expectation that parents will read to their children at least several times a week and providing support to help them do so.

High-quality early education and care

Infants and toddlers, whether in family child care or center-based programs, need the language-rich settings that research links to improved academic achievement. All children must have access to voluntary high-quality pre-kindergarten. In 2006, Massachusetts launched a universal pre-kindergarten grant program, designed to help programs achieve and maintain quality. It has reached 6,400 children in 105 communities across the Common­wealth. The next governor should significantly expand high-quality pre-kindergarten.

Full-day kindergarten

The governor should also expand children’s access to high-quality, full-day kindergarten. Here again the research is clear. Children in full-day programs experience greater gains in early literacy, math, and science than children in half-day programs. In addition, children’s vocabulary in kindergarten correlates strongly with their 10th grade reading scores.

Policymakers and practitioners must also recognize that 5- and 6-year-olds learn differently than older students. “There still needs to be thoughtful play time. There still needs to be a language-rich environment,” says Jill Flanders of the Plains Elementary School in South Hadley, who was the Massachusetts Elementary School Principals’ Association 2010 outstanding principal of the year. “It does not mean sitting at desks working on worksheets in a test prep type of program.”

Improved early educator and teacher quality

Research consistently demonstrates that the quality of teaching, whether in early learning settings or schools, is a critical determinant of children’s achievement.

We must treat early educators, both in family child care settings and center-based programs, as professionals, with professional training and professional wages. Research finds that young children taught by early educators with bachelor’s degrees and training in early childhood have better language and math skills and stronger peer relationships. Yet only 30 percent of early educators in center-based programs and 18 percent of family child care providers in Massa­chusetts have bachelor’s degrees, and the field suffers from low pay and high turnover. The state should maintain and expand scholarships and other supports for early educators returning to school. It should find ways to increase compensation for early educators as they earn associate degrees and bachelor’s degrees. It should build a professional development system that stresses language-rich environments for young children and career pathways for early educators.

Research shows that children with strong primary grade teachers three years in a row make great progress in overcoming early deficits. Professional development for teachers should focus on language development and literacy. It should be ongoing, guided by data and linked to practice. Likewise, teacher preparation programs and certification requirements for teachers, pre-K-3, must include coursework in language and literacy development and reading instruction as well as early childhood. Instructional leadership is critical, yet many principals lack the skills or training to guide their faculty in implementing best practices for developing young readers.

The Cambridge-based CAYL Institute works with elementary school principals to strengthen their understanding of early learning. Early education’s “lens of developmentally appropriate practice” is a powerful school improve­ment tool, says CAYL President Valora Washington. “It helps the youngest learners, but it’s also a vehicle through which we can provide a framework for an entire elementary school.”

Pre-kindergarten to third grade alignment

The state’s public schools and private providers of early education and care should collaborate to align curriculum, professional development and assessments as well as to ease children’s transition from one setting to the next. The state’s anticipated inclusion of pre-kindergarten standards in the Common Core Standards and the recent signing of a model memorandum of understanding between the Spring­field Public Schools and the Massachusetts Depart­ment of Early Education and Care are important steps in this direction.

The state should offer guidance on curriculum both to ensure that curricula are language-rich, rigorous and engaging and to streamline the number in use.

The third grade MCAS is currently the first statewide measure of children’s progress. The Commonwealth should devise a standardized and developmentally appropriate method for tracking children’s earlier learning to inform and improve practice, better analyze overall progress, and direct resources. We should not let fear of testing trump the need to sensitively and carefully adopt assessment tools suitable for young children.

“When assessment systems result in high-stress experiences for our children or purposeless additions to professionals’ plates we can all be concerned,” Harvard-based literacy expert Nonie Lesaux wrote in the 2010 report Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success. “However, by neglecting to regularly evaluate our young children’s language and early reading skills, we have done more harm than good.”

Massachusetts must give all children the strong start they deserve and, in the process, reduce the need for remediation that is costly to taxpayers, emotionally taxing for children and families, and difficult for schools. The governor should recognize this as the unfinished business of education reform and the essential first step in building the workforce of the future.  

Paul O’Brien and Richard Weissbourd serve on the board of Strategies for Children. O’Brien, the former CEO of New England Telephone Company, is president of The O’Brien Group. Weiss­bourd is a lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a founder of ReadBoston and WriteBoston.