11: The Outlier

Speaker 1 The Who's Down and Who Newville were making their list, but some didn't know Walmart has the best brands for their gifts.

Speaker 3 What about toys?

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Speaker 5 Do you mean they have all the brands I adore?

Speaker 1 They have Nintendo, Espresso, Apple, and more. What about So the Who answered questions from friends till they were blue? Each one listened and shouted, From Walmart?

Speaker 2 Who knew?

Speaker 1 Shop gifts from top brands for everyone on your list in the Walmart app.

Speaker 7 Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8.

Speaker 7 Only at McDonald's.

Speaker 8 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery.

Speaker 9 Previously unsold a story.

Speaker 11 Judge Docs.

Speaker 13 He doesn't look at all the letters and words. He doesn't look at all the words and sentences.
And reading is miserable for him.

Speaker 11 Josh.

Speaker 15 The kids struggle and they suffer.

Speaker 16 You know, there's kids sinking everywhere, and they're looking for help, and

Speaker 16 it's on us.

Speaker 17 I'm calling for a renewed focus on literacy and on the way we teach reading in the state of Ohio. My bill requires the science of reading.

Speaker 8 The challenge of bringing literacy on a massive scale to entire population is a tall order.

Speaker 19 What I'm fearful of, because I've seen it so many times, is

Speaker 19 movements sometimes gloss over detail. And here's the details are so critical.

Speaker 22 A few years before this podcast came out, I met Karen Chenoweth at a conference.

Speaker 23 You and I sat next to each other at lunch. We didn't know each other.

Speaker 24 We hit it off immediately.

Speaker 26 We were both education reporters, and we were both kind of obsessed with reading instruction.

Speaker 23 I think I asked you what you were working on, and you started telling me, and I was very excited.

Speaker 6 I knew more about Karen than she knew about me.

Speaker 25 For years, she'd been writing books about schools.

Speaker 33 I'd been reading her books.

Speaker 35 And in one of those books, she told the story of a school she visited back in 2008, a school in a small city in eastern Ohio, a place called Steubenville.

Speaker 23 I had never been there. I had never heard of it.

Speaker 4 When she got there, she could immediately see that it was a city in rough shape.

Speaker 23 It was one of the saddest places I've ever been to.

Speaker 24 Steubenville is an old steel town.

Speaker 38 The mills had shut down, jobs had vanished.

Speaker 23 There was a rusting hulk of a steel mill. There were abandoned buildings, a lot of rubbish, very little business downtown.
The stores were empty.

Speaker 38 In the heart of the depressed downtown was the elementary school Karen was there to see, a school where the majority of kids were from low-income families.

Speaker 23 It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was.

Speaker 27 All the third graders at this school were passing the state reading test.

Speaker 31 Every single one.

Speaker 23 You would have been amazed, Emily. I mean, every kid knew how to read.
They had a kid they were so proud of who had been measured with a very low IQ and he was reading.

Speaker 23 I mean, like, this was an amazing school.

Speaker 38 The sad fact is, schools with lots of low-income students usually have low reading scores.

Speaker 35 But according to state test score data, this school was one of the best in Ohio.

Speaker 42 Karen often thought about that amazing little school, wondered how things were going in Steubenville.

Speaker 28 And then one day in 2016, Karen arrived at work and opened up the New York Times, and there was an article.

Speaker 24 about a huge new data set from Stanford University that allowed you to compare academic achievement at schools across the country.

Speaker 33 This was new.

Speaker 43 Before, you could only compare schools within a state.

Speaker 40 This new data allowed you to compare schools across state lines.

Speaker 24 The New York Times story included a graphic. The graphic had thousands of dots on it.

Speaker 20 Each dot was a school district.

Speaker 23 My eye was immediately drawn to this little dot on the upper left corner.

Speaker 39 The dots in the upper left were the poor school districts where the kids were doing well.

Speaker 2 And the dot Karen was looking at was out there all alone, doing far better than the others.

Speaker 23 And that was Steubenville.

Speaker 48 Kids in Steubenville were more than two grade levels ahead of kids in other school districts in the United States with similar levels of poverty.

Speaker 48 And kids in Steubenville were actually doing better than kids in some of the country's most affluent districts.

Speaker 24 Steubenville had some of the best little readers in the nation, and it still does.

Speaker 46 How did Steubenville do it?

Speaker 52 I'm Emily Hanford and this is Sold a Story, a podcast from APM Reports.

Speaker 53 Today we have the first of three new episodes.

Speaker 48 In this episode, I'm going to take you to Steubenville and show you how they teach reading there.

Speaker 39 They do a bunch of stuff that a lot of other schools don't.

Speaker 48 In the next episode, I'm going to tell you about the program Steubenville uses and where it comes from.

Speaker 49 And then, a surprising twist.

Speaker 48 For much of the past year, the program that Steubenville uses was under threat because of this podcast.

Speaker 9 After Sold a Story came out, the state of Ohio created a list, a list of approved reading programs.

Speaker 10 And when that list first came out, the program Steubenville uses wasn't on the list.

Speaker 42 When I visited Steubenville, I stayed at a hotel across the river in West Virginia and drove to the city early in the morning, just after sunrise.

Speaker 20 As I drive down into the Ohio River Valley from the hills of West Virginia, the blue sky disappears and I'm surrounded by thick fog.

Speaker 24 As I enter the city, I can just barely make out the street signs.

Speaker 49 Dean Martin Boulevard.

Speaker 51 A fun fact about Steubenville, the legendary singer Dean Martin was born here.

Speaker 20 I'm headed to East Garfield Elementary, which most people just call East.

Speaker 53 It's the school here with the most students living in poverty.

Speaker 53 Arrived.

Speaker 24 The school is next to a public housing project.

Speaker 9 As I get out of my car, I see little kids with big backpacks emerging out of the morning fog from the projects.

Speaker 48 Kids who live in the neighborhood walk to school.

Speaker 24 Others take a bus or get dropped off.

Speaker 60 Morning, girls.

Speaker 14 Oh, goodness, please.

Speaker 61 Have a good day.

Speaker 53 When I arrive, teachers, staff, and a couple of local police officers are greeting students at the door.

Speaker 34 Are you the police, man?

Speaker 61 Of course I am, my friend.

Speaker 56 Just inside the school entrance, there's a girl standing in the hallway, looking unhappy.

Speaker 1 What's wrong, girl? Come here!

Speaker 56 She's a little blonde girl with skinny legs, wearing a dirty tan skirt and sneakers.

Speaker 9 She's upset about her hair.

Speaker 57 It's tied up in a messy ponytail, uncombed, hair kind of spilling out everywhere.

Speaker 42 Apparently, she's often upset about her hair when she arrives at school.

Speaker 48 And what's this story?

Speaker 62 She just doesn't get it done at home the way she wants? Yes.

Speaker 1 At all.

Speaker 63 She doesn't get it done at home.

Speaker 64 She says she doesn't have, mom doesn't have time.

Speaker 65 So we make time.

Speaker 53 This is Nancy Beattie, a teacher at the school.

Speaker 20 Miss Beatty bought a brush and hair ties that she keeps at school just for this little girl.

Speaker 38 And she fixes the girl's hair when she needs it. Sometimes the girl needs socks too, or a sweatshirt.

Speaker 46 There's a clothes closet for that.

Speaker 66 We also have like shoes, socks, and stuff in here.

Speaker 64 This is Jennifer Blackburn.

Speaker 42 She's an instructional coach at East and the keeper of the clothes closet.

Speaker 41 Oh, winter boots.

Speaker 66 Yeah, winter boots.

Speaker 2 Sneakers, sneakers.

Speaker 66 I just went and bought sneakers and socks. I stuck them in here.

Speaker 21 How often do you have to give kids clothing?

Speaker 66 Every day. day.

Speaker 62 Every day.

Speaker 66 We have one parent homes, no parent homes, kids that are coming from the homeless shelters.

Speaker 25 The staff and teachers at this school know that they have to meet kids' basic needs first, that children need to be fed and clothed and cared for in order to learn.

Speaker 59 And the staff and teachers here clearly care deeply about their students and take the time to do the little things that matter, like fixing a girl's hair or giving her socks.

Speaker 54 This is true in many high poverty schools I visit.

Speaker 67 The kids have a lot of basic needs and the staff does a lot to try to meet those needs.

Speaker 32 But in a lot of those schools, a lot of the kids aren't learning how to read very well.

Speaker 31 In Steubenville, they are.

Speaker 66 Ready?

Speaker 39 My tour guide is Jen Blackburn, the instructional coach and keeper of the clothes closet.

Speaker 34 She takes me first to preschool.

Speaker 68 Let me make sure my friends are sitting nice, crisscross applesauce, hands in their laps.

Speaker 34 The preschoolers are on the rug, looking up at their teacher eagerly.

Speaker 67 She's assigning jobs for the day.

Speaker 68 I pulled Dier, so Dier, you're my cool kid today.

Speaker 53 Dierre is beaming.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're gonna be my cool kid today.

Speaker 68 So what does my cool kid do, friends?

Speaker 70 I'll be the line leader.

Speaker 68 You're gonna be the line leader. You're right.
All right, let me.

Speaker 21 Line leader is clearly the best job, but there are other jobs.

Speaker 68 Ryan, do you want to be the door holder? The electrician, teacher's assistant, or caboose?

Speaker 68 The teacher. Oh, remember, put it in a sentence.

Speaker 70 I.

Speaker 68 Thank you. Very nice sentence.

Speaker 72 These preschoolers are constantly being reminded to speak in full sentences.

Speaker 68 Oh, put it in a sentence.

Speaker 70 Hi, Adi.

Speaker 70 Hi, God.

Speaker 68 Thank you. She said, I would like to be the door holder.

Speaker 64 In preschool, you want to get kids really good at talking

Speaker 4 because that's going to be a huge help when they start learning how to read.

Speaker 30 Knowing lots of words, how to pronounce them, what they mean, is essential.

Speaker 31 And teaching kids to speak in full sentences helps them learn grammar and syntax, how words and phrases are arranged in the English language.

Speaker 45 This also helps with reading.

Speaker 37 and with writing too.

Speaker 63 The early childhood program is really the foundation for successful readers.

Speaker 64 This is Lynette Gorman.

Speaker 42 She's the principal of West Elementary in Steubenville.

Speaker 63 A lot of oral language in those early preschool years.

Speaker 73 There's a preschool program at all of Steubenville's elementary schools.

Speaker 37 That's not unusual to find a preschool inside an elementary school.

Speaker 71 What's unusual is how many kids here go to preschool.

Speaker 30 Across the country, fewer than half of children attend a preschool program.

Speaker 31 In Steubenville, it's nearly 80%.

Speaker 26 Children can start when they're three years old, and it's free for the poorest families.

Speaker 24 Everyone else pays $100 a month.

Speaker 30 You heard that right, just $100 a month for all-day preschool.

Speaker 62 Okay, so where are we going now?

Speaker 3 Ramsey, kindergarten.

Speaker 54 I'm back with Jen Blackburn on our tour of reading instruction in Steubenville.

Speaker 37 Kindergarten is where formal reading instruction begins.

Speaker 39 And there's something kind of unusual going on here too, with how kids are taught the letters of the alphabet.

Speaker 63 All right, let's make the sounds that they make.

Speaker 26 The teacher is holding up cards with letters on them.

Speaker 2 Ready to go.

Speaker 59 And the kids are saying the sounds of the letters.

Speaker 6 But they're not saying the names of the letters.

Speaker 36 This is a particular way of teaching letters.

Speaker 42 It's sometimes referred to as the sounds first approach.

Speaker 57 And it's not the way letters are typically taught in American schools.

Speaker 38 Typically, kids are taught the names of letters first, the alphabet song.

Speaker 70 A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

Speaker 41 I remember learning the alphabet song.

Speaker 30 I still sing it in my head when I need to remember the order of letters, like when I'm alphabetizing books.

Speaker 42 You need to know the names of letters and the order of the alphabet to be a literate person.

Speaker 38 But what do you need to know to learn how to read?

Speaker 53 To learn how to read, you don't need to know the names of the letters.

Speaker 28 In fact, the letter names can be confusing.

Speaker 38 For example, the most common sound of the letter E in English is not e, it's e, as in bed and fed.

Speaker 30 And the most common sound of the letter I is not I, it's i, as in sit and pin.

Speaker 20 The idea in a sounds-first approach is to focus children's attention on the sounds of letters.

Speaker 48 So when they're trying to read a word, the sounds are what immediately come to mind.

Speaker 26 There's no interference, no confusion with the names of the letters.

Speaker 67 Like I said, it's unusual.

Speaker 75 I even had my parents kind of question it.

Speaker 59 Amy Crowe teaches kindergarten in Steubenville.

Speaker 2 They were like, why are you teaching them?

Speaker 21 Don't they have to know what the letter is called?

Speaker 75 And I said, actually, to read the word, it's more important for them to know the sound first. So my son was 20 months old and he and he was naming letters like ah b and my dad was frustrated by it.

Speaker 75 He was like, no, it's not. It's called A.
And I'm like, no, dad, I did this for a reason. And this is what I do in my school and this is what works.

Speaker 46 There's actually some disagreement among cognitive scientists about whether it's better to start with the letter names or the letter sounds.

Speaker 38 The bottom line is that kids need to learn both.

Speaker 59 And it's not that kids in Steubenville aren't taught the names of letters.

Speaker 34 They are.

Speaker 45 It's just that there's an emphasis on letter sounds to try to reduce clutter, to minimize the chances that a child will be confused.

Speaker 30 In other words, there's an emphasis on how children learn and what might be difficult for a beginner.

Speaker 67 This is one of the things that stood out to me in Steubenville.

Speaker 16 There's a focus here not just on what kids learn, but on how they learn.

Speaker 24 I think how kids learn is sometimes missing in the conversation about the science of reading these days.

Speaker 51 It's one thing for everyone to agree that reading instruction must include phonics, for example.

Speaker 16 It's another to ask, how are you teaching phonics?

Speaker 26 Does your approach take into account how children learn?

Speaker 67 Stubenville stands out because they are paying attention to learning.

Speaker 52 And the alphabet is just the beginning.

Speaker 34 More after a break.

Speaker 7 Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries fries and a drink are just $8.

Speaker 7 Only at McDonald's.

Speaker 8 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery.

Speaker 18 That's the sound of James adding long-lasting gain scent boosters to his laundry this morning. Several hours later, James sniffs the irresistible scent of gain on his shirt.

Speaker 2 Ah, gain.

Speaker 18 Several hours later, James has even caught the attention of his mother-in-law, and she never gives him attention.

Speaker 4 Ooh, you smell amazing, James.

Speaker 1 Oh, thanks, mom. I love you, too.

Speaker 33 I never said that.

Speaker 18 Add gang scent boosters to your laundry. Add joy to your day.

Speaker 3 Think about what happened on page two, and I want you two to come up with a nice retell.

Speaker 55 We're in a first-grade classroom now.

Speaker 70 What happened on page two? On page two, um,

Speaker 69 the mom and the dad was driving to work.

Speaker 39 Notice how the kids are speaking in full sentences.

Speaker 70 On page two,

Speaker 2 Eric drawed his house.

Speaker 30 They haven't mastered perfect grammar yet.

Speaker 69 He drawed his car.

Speaker 45 And they still need reminders about what to do when they come to a word they don't know.

Speaker 24 But by first grade, these kids are putting it all together.

Speaker 54 They're reading and writing.

Speaker 26 I saw a lot of writing built into the reading instruction in Steubenville.

Speaker 62 What does your sentence say? Can you read it?

Speaker 14 Sipping did not help Scott.

Speaker 34 The students just read a story about a boy who's trying to get rid of his hiccups.

Speaker 52 Now they're writing about it.

Speaker 39 Each student has a partner whose job is to provide feedback on their sentences.

Speaker 62 And what are you pointing out, Arrea?

Speaker 31 Arrea thinks her partner's sentence should include what Scott was sipping.

Speaker 39 Scott was sipping water.

Speaker 62 Do you see what she's telling you about what is missing?

Speaker 69 You're missing water, so we waste a dinner and white water.

Speaker 64 The boy erases his sentence and writes, sipping water did not help Scott.

Speaker 39 Arraya gives him a high five.

Speaker 39 There's a lot of this in Steupenville.

Speaker 71 Kids working together in pairs and small groups, actually teaching each other.

Speaker 42 One moment that stood out to me was in a third grade class.

Speaker 26 The kids were taking turns reading a book about rainforests.

Speaker 76 Orangutans spend most of their lives in the treetops swinging from branch to branch.

Speaker 33 I was walking around the classroom, and as I approached one group, a girl was giving her classmates some instructions.

Speaker 70 So, what I want you to do is we're going to reread the sentence because we were just kind of reading like a robot, and we wanted to have perfect clarity.

Speaker 6 It's kind of a blunt critique, but the boy seems unfazed, gives it another shot.

Speaker 76 Alright,

Speaker 2 bats are common in the rainforest. They are not birds, but the world's only flying mammals.

Speaker 26 This teamwork thing, kids working together and actually teaching each other, it's a central component of how Steubenville teaches reading.

Speaker 14 They call it cooperative learning.

Speaker 33 And I was kind of skeptical at first.

Speaker 26 When you look at the research on effective reading instruction, what you see over and over are references to the importance of direct instruction.

Speaker 32 That's when a teacher explicitly teaches students how to do something, like how to sound out a word.

Speaker 37 Putting kids together in small groups and having them teach each other is kind of the opposite of that.

Speaker 45 But in my tour through Steubenville schools, I did see teachers provide direct instruction, quite a bit of it, even in preschool.

Speaker 64 But there's always this cooperative learning time built in, too.

Speaker 53 What I realized is that cooperative learning provides something really important, something kids need to become good readers.

Speaker 57 It provides a lot of time for practice.

Speaker 70 Relatives.

Speaker 70 Relatives of this.

Speaker 28 One of the concerns I hear about schools trying to do the science of reading is that sometimes there's not enough time for practice.

Speaker 72 That schools may now be providing too much instruction and not giving kids enough time to actually read.

Speaker 2 Good job, you guys.

Speaker 59 So here are my observations so far on reading instruction in Steubenville.

Speaker 10 The district has preschool and most children go.

Speaker 4 There's a big focus on spoken language skills.

Speaker 77 There's phonics instruction, there's a lot of writing, not just reading, and there's direct instruction.

Speaker 60 But there's also cooperative learning, and that provides a lot of time for practice.

Speaker 10 And perhaps one of the most unusual things about how Steubenville approaches reading instruction is that every teacher teaches reading.

Speaker 65 Okay.

Speaker 38 Like even this guy.

Speaker 65 Get out your collection of readings.

Speaker 39 This is Josh Meyer.

Speaker 4 He's wearing shorts and a hoodie with the sleeves cut off.

Speaker 46 He looks like a football coach, and he is.

Speaker 42 He's also the gym teacher at one of the elementary schools.

Speaker 30 But in the mornings, he's not in the gym.

Speaker 59 He's teaching a second grade reading class.

Speaker 69 All right, here we go.

Speaker 2 Follow along as Mr. Meyer reads.

Speaker 4 Biggest age.

Speaker 3 Gorillas are the biggest.

Speaker 78 When I tell some of my other colleagues that may be at other schools that this is what I do, you know, in the morning, they would say, you kidding me?

Speaker 53 But it's part of the deal when you teach in a Steubenville elementary school.

Speaker 38 Gym teachers, music teachers, science teachers, they all teach a reading class.

Speaker 43 And here's why.

Speaker 34 If you have a lot of teachers to teach reading, the reading classes can be really small.

Speaker 31 I was in one that had only six kids.

Speaker 66 We turned closets into classrooms so that we can teach anywhere we can teach in this building.

Speaker 64 This is Jen Blackburn again, my tour guide.

Speaker 66 At one time this was my office. We changed it into a classroom.

Speaker 53 And it's not just that every teacher teaches reading.

Speaker 73 It's that every student in the school has reading class at the same time.

Speaker 35 Every morning from 9 to 10.30.

Speaker 24 That's the reading block.

Speaker 74 Having all the kids in a school in reading instruction at the same time means students can be assigned to a reading class based on their skill level regardless of what grade they're in.

Speaker 15 So if a second grader is still reading on a first grade level, she goes to a first grade class during the reading block.

Speaker 28 And if a first grader is reading on a second grade level, she goes to a second grade class.

Speaker 51 This way of grouping kids is rare in American schools.

Speaker 44 In fact, it's controversial.

Speaker 15 Standard practice is for all kids to get instruction at their grade level.

Speaker 48 The idea is to prevent kids from getting stuck behind.

Speaker 57 But Steubenville has a system to make sure that doesn't happen.

Speaker 66 I'm just going to show you around the data tool that our teachers use.

Speaker 39 Jen Blackburn pulls up a window on a computer screen.

Speaker 66 You can click on an individual student. These are first graders.

Speaker 33 It shows every child at her school and where they are in reading.

Speaker 26 And not just what grade level they're on, but more detailed information about the specific skills they've mastered and and what they still need to learn.

Speaker 66 So I can look at this student right here.

Speaker 34 She clicks on a first grader who's behind.

Speaker 38 It's about two months into the school year and he's still working on reading skills from the end of kindergarten.

Speaker 46 So during the school's reading block, he goes to a class with other kids who are still working on the end-of-year kindergarten skills.

Speaker 24 The underlying philosophy here is moving a child ahead before he's mastered the basics is like trying to build a house without finishing the foundation.

Speaker 14 And so what are you going to do?

Speaker 22 So this kid is currently behind, not way behind, but a little behind.

Speaker 66 He's pretty behind in comparison to his peers.

Speaker 79 So he is placed in a very

Speaker 42 small reading class, so he can get plenty of attention from a teacher.

Speaker 10 And he gets tutoring during the school day.

Speaker 26 In fact, every first grader at this school gets a reading tutor until they've mastered all the first grade material.

Speaker 46 And as kids reach mastery and their tutors are freed up, the first graders who are still behind get even more tutoring.

Speaker 37 I asked Jen Blackburn how much tutoring the boy we've been talking about could end up getting.

Speaker 66 Probably 25,

Speaker 66 sometimes 40 minutes, sometimes twice a day, four days a week.

Speaker 24 That's a lot of tutoring, but that's what it could take to get this kid up to grade level.

Speaker 25 Where does Steubenville find all these tutors?

Speaker 55 Some are paid staff, others are community volunteers, and a lot of them are students, college students from a local university and students from Steubenville High School.

Speaker 62 Can I listen in for a couple minutes?

Speaker 2 You want to read this page for her?

Speaker 45 A high school student is tutoring a first grader at a small table tucked into the corner of a hallway.

Speaker 69 All the men have

Speaker 80 two

Speaker 69 to help.

Speaker 24 All the tutors get training, so kids get consistent instruction.

Speaker 53 But this high school tutor was already familiar with how Steubenville teaches reading.

Speaker 32 It's the way she was taught when she was a little kid in Steubenville schools.

Speaker 80 Yeah,

Speaker 5 same books.

Speaker 53 Steubenville has been teaching kids to read the same way for 25 years.

Speaker 38 I think consistency may be one of the secrets of their success.

Speaker 31 Something else that's critical for success?

Speaker 28 Attendance.

Speaker 73 Attendance is huge.

Speaker 29 A school can offer fantastic reading instruction, but kids aren't going to get that instruction if they're not in school.

Speaker 26 So Steubenville puts a lot of effort into making sure kids show up.

Speaker 81 I am Dr. Allen.

Speaker 38 Suzanne Allen is the Dean of Students at East.

Speaker 28 She's in charge of attendance.

Speaker 24 If a kid is absent, it's her job to find out why right away.

Speaker 58 So when I receive the attendance cards from the teachers, if a parent hasn't called, I make sure that I give them a call.

Speaker 21 Hi, this is Dr. Allen.

Speaker 4 The idea is rapid response.

Speaker 58 I'm just calling to check on your son.

Speaker 29 She's calling about a kindergartner.

Speaker 38 He wasn't feeling well on Monday, but now it's Friday.

Speaker 74 He's been absent four days.

Speaker 37 No word from his mom.

Speaker 26 Dr. Allen gets voicemail every time she calls.

Speaker 34 She's worried about this kid.

Speaker 66 This is a homeless child.

Speaker 26 If he doesn't show up on Monday, she says she'll drive to the homeless shelter and find out what's going on.

Speaker 30 She does this a lot, knocks on doors, brings kids to school if she has to.

Speaker 38 She does other other things to get them there too.

Speaker 58 I have attendance contests. It's called Stay in the Game.

Speaker 38 Homerooms compete against each other for the best attendance. Good morning, staff and students.

Speaker 57 Every morning, Dr.

Speaker 30 Allen gets on the intercom to announce the homerooms that had perfect attendance the previous day.

Speaker 24 We had kindergarten, Ms. Blackbird.
We had second grade, Mrs. DeAngelo.
The homerooms with the best attendance win prizes.

Speaker 58 They can choose from a frosty, they can choose from ice cream sandwich, extra recess, or just a little extra time on the computer.

Speaker 28 My first reaction to the attendance contest was, isn't getting little kids to school more of a parent thing?

Speaker 26 Like, don't you need to motivate the parents more than the students?

Speaker 30 Not necessarily.

Speaker 76 A lot of our kids live right here.

Speaker 60 They live in the housing projects next to the school.

Speaker 35 And this first grade teacher, Julie Battistell, says a lot of kids are responsible for getting themselves to school and their younger siblings too.

Speaker 81 They are getting themselves up and getting themselves dressed and getting themselves to school.

Speaker 81 So I think what we're doing here is making them want to come, pushing them to be responsible, get out the door, and get over here.

Speaker 6 Absenteeism is a big problem in many American schools, especially since COVID.

Speaker 29 In Ohio, more than a quarter of students were chronically absent last year.

Speaker 30 That means they missed close to a month of school, sometimes more.

Speaker 31 But Steubenville has one of the lowest absenteeism rates in the state.

Speaker 26 They're getting kids to school and teaching them to read.

Speaker 71 Here's what it sounds like by the time students are in middle school.

Speaker 79 After a while, he thought he could make out the shape of the mountains through the haze.

Speaker 6 This is a fifth grade English class.

Speaker 60 Middle school starts in fifth grade here.

Speaker 11 He could see there was nothing ahead of him, nothing but emptiness.

Speaker 32 I told you that students in Steubenville are grouped for reading instruction based on their skill level.

Speaker 41 What you're hearing now is the lowest level English class at the middle school, and they're all reading on grade level.

Speaker 73 There are no kids here who are behind.

Speaker 11 There wasn't any water.

Speaker 2 It was a mirage. What is it called? Mirage.
Mirage.

Speaker 46 Steubenville is a place full of confident readers and confident teachers.

Speaker 34 I asked teachers here if they ever feel unequipped to teach a child how to read.

Speaker 10 they looked at me funny, like they didn't understand the question.

Speaker 80 No.

Speaker 62 You have not faced a kid who were like, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 75 No, I've never felt that way. I do feel very equipped, prepared, and felt that I could get that job done.

Speaker 29 I asked another question that got me some baffled looks.

Speaker 40 I asked if they'd heard of the authors we focused on in this podcast.

Speaker 30 Have you ever heard of Fountess and Pinnell?

Speaker 2 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 43 Have you ever heard of Lucy Cawkins?

Speaker 2 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 65 You've like literally never heard of these people?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 40 I also asked about the term balanced literacy, a term used to describe the Caucas and Fountess and Pinnell approach, a term that had become ubiquitous in American education, or so I thought.

Speaker 63 Balanced literacy.

Speaker 71 Teachers in Steubenville had no idea what I was talking about.

Speaker 80 Is that what you said? Balanced literacy?

Speaker 3 I do not know what that is, no.

Speaker 80 I mean, no.

Speaker 65 You've never like heard of it.

Speaker 80 I mean, not that I can.

Speaker 2 No, not really.

Speaker 10 Steubenville had no need to pursue the latest trend, to even know what the latest trend was, because what they were doing was working.

Speaker 74 It's been working for 25 years.

Speaker 48 And what Steubenville has been doing is not something they invented here.

Speaker 24 They didn't come up with this way of teaching reading.

Speaker 4 Everything you heard, the focus on preschool and language development, the sounds first approach to teaching letters, the way they group kids, the gym teacher teaching reading, the direct instruction, the cooperative learning, the tutoring, the attendance.

Speaker 15 It's all part of a program.

Speaker 77 In our next episode, I'm going to tell you about this program, where it came from, and how it got caught up in that big federal effort to improve reading instruction more than two decades ago.

Speaker 61 The program known as Reading First is mismanaged, the auditors say, and full of conflicts of interest.

Speaker 78 He was so frustrated by the policy landscape here in the U.S. that he left.

Speaker 78 He left the U.S. altogether.

Speaker 8 Yeah, it was horrendous.

Speaker 20 If you like this podcast, please follow us in your podcast app and leave a review.

Speaker 24 It's one of the best ways to help other people find the show.

Speaker 16 Reporter Karen Chenoweth wrote a couple of books that include Stephen Ville, and she has a podcast too. We'll have links in the show notes.

Speaker 24 There will also be a link to our website where you can find much more about this podcast and sign up for our newsletter.

Speaker 4 Soul to Story is an APM Reports podcast produced by me, Emily Hanford.

Speaker 26 My co-reporter is Christopher Peake.

Speaker 53 Our data reporter is Kate Martin.

Speaker 34 Our editor is Curtis Gilbert.

Speaker 22 We had mixing and sound design by Chris Julin, and reporting, production, and editing help from Olivia Chilcoti, Carmela Walianone, Emily Havik, Emily Corwin, and Lindsay Sievert, and fact-checking by Betsy Towner-Levine.

Speaker 4 Andy Cruz is our digital editor.

Speaker 24 Final mastering of this episode was by Derek Ramirez.

Speaker 51 Our theme music was created by Wonderly. Tom Scheck is the deputy managing editor of APM Reports, and our executive editor is Jane Helmke.

Speaker 34 Leadership support for Soul to Story comes from Hollyhawk Foundation and Oak Foundation.

Speaker 57 Support also comes from IBIS Group, Esther A.

Speaker 22 and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, Kenneth Raynan Foundation, and the Listeners of American Public Media.