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

At the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Tarrant County’s Martin Branch on June 26, 2024, LIFT reading interventionist Christian Jones sits and reads with students.
Courtesy photo
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Vernessa Evans
At the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Tarrant County’s Martin Branch on June 26, 2024, LIFT reading interventionist Christian Jones sits and reads with students.

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

She knew the song. She didn’t know each individual letter.

The little girl was in kindergarten.

If you go

With the Lone Star Film Festival and the Fort Worth Film Commission, the Fort Worth Report is hosting a screening of the documentary “The Right to Read.” The movie follows an activist, a teacher and two American families seeking to provide their children with the most foundational indicator of lifelong success: the ability to read.

A panel discussion will follow the movie. Panelists include:

  • Heather Haynes Smith, associate professor in the Department of Education at Trinity University
  • Robert Rogers, president of The Reading League Texas
  • Michael Faggella-Luby, professor in the Department of Teaching & Learning Sciences at TCU

When: 5:30 p.m. Nov. 1

Where: Kimbell Art Museum’s Piano Pavilion, 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd.

Tickets: Tickets are $10 and available here. Proceeds support Reading Partners.

Quintana did not find out how far behind her child was until she turned to Parent Shield’s Literacy is Freedom Texas program, an initiative the parent advocacy group launched during the summer to help students through the sixth grade read on grade level.

The free 10-week intervention program helped 52 students — nearly all of whom were reading below their 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 for Fort Worth’s low reading rates, but the biggest hurdle is the cost, the organization’s leaders said.

More than half of children who live in Fort Worth cannot read on their grade level, according to a Fort Worth Education Partnership report.

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

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

“Just saying read to your kids at home, that’s not the answer,” Dorsey-Hollins said. “We have to dig a little bit deeper than just reading. We have to get some intervention in place. We have to do what works.”

At two Boys & Girls Clubs of Tarrant County locations during the summer, 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 of the parents involved in the program had no idea their kids’ reading troubles were so pronounced.

When Nancy Horne, Olivia’s mother, noticed her then-first grade daughter struggling with reading, she didn’t have the time or resources to tutor her children. Neither could she have afforded to hire one, she said. Instead, she used a newfound connection to intervene. Juanita Aldama, a program interventionist, stepped in to provide support.

The high-dosage 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 breakout groups of three students 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 have made a difference, too.

Each session was 45 minutes long, with the last 15 minutes spent talking to parents about their students’ progress. Every week, teachers sent updates to parents and informed them of 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, noticed obvious growth in her students’ confidence.

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

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

Parent Shield’s recommendations

Parent Shield outlined six recommendations to boost reading rates based on its 2024 summer intervention program. They are:

  • Build and align intentional high-dosage reading intervention time into traditional classroom instruction.
  • Invest funding in high-dosage intervention.
  • Better use of data from the Measures of Academic Progress to build personalized intervention plans for students.
  • Standardize a process to develop personalized learning plans.
  • Create safe, supportive spaces for students to practice reading aloud with positive feedback and challenges.
  • Share MAP data more frequently with parents and make it more accessible so parents can make decisions.

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

“We know that with the schools having our kids three times that amount, they should be able to grow at minimum two to three years with targeted intervention,” Dorsey-Hollins said.

Pre-assessments of students were critical in providing teachers and parents with a starting point with students’ abilities, Dorsey-Hollins said.

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

“But just how is that MAP data being shared to our parents? Is it shared in a way to where they’re able to understand it and know how to actually apply those tools to their kids’ everyday learning?” Dorsey-Hollins said.

School districts need to build high-dosage literacy instruction into traditional classroom instruction time, according to Parent Shield’s recommendations. Combining MAP data with high quality interventions and transparency for families will result in significant reading growth, Dorsey-Hollins said.

Dorsey-Hollins acknowledged the work can be challenging, but she hears from teachers who often have entire classrooms filled with students who all need reading intervention. Classroom instruction is the right time to build up students, she said.

Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar’s plan to deploy 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.

Quintana, the Fort Worth mother, saw her children’s attitude toward reading change. Her kids thought books were boring when they first started the intervention program. Halfway through, they loved reading and thought it was fun.

They even brought books for their mom to read.

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

Quintana moved to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 7 and had to learn English. She struggled in school because she has ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. She did not know she had the developmental disorder until later in life.

“At the time I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t understand or keep anything in my brain,” Quintana said.

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

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

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

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

Now, her children can’t get enough of reading. Although Parent Shield’s program ended, Quintana wants to ensure her children keep their spark for reading alight.

“I don’t care if I have to drive as long as I’m able to take my kids to go learn something that I haven’t been able to teach them,” she said.

Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez

Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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

Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His work has appeared in the Temple Daily Telegram, The Texas Tribune and the Texas Observer. He is a graduate of St. Edward’s University. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.