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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode 72: The Nation’s Report Card: What Educators Need to Know & How to Take Action
The latest results from The Nation’s Report Card & NAEP tests reveal a continued decline in reading proficiency across all student groups. With less than one-third of 4th and 8th graders reading at or above grade level, it’s easy for educators to feel discouraged. But instead of getting defensive, let’s focus on solutions.
In this episode of the Compass PD Podcast, Dr. Natalie Fallert breaks down:
📊 What the NAEP results actually tell us (hint: it’s not just about public schools)
📉 The impact of technology on attention spans, critical thinking, & reading ability
📖 4 powerful strategies educators can implement right now to improve reading outcomes
🚀 Opportunities to learn new techniques for boosting student engagement & literacy
While the data may seem discouraging, there is hope. Join us this summer to learn how we can partner together to help students become stronger readers. Let’s get inspired and take action!
Hello and welcome to the Compass PD podcast, where we dive into evidence-based practices and research-driven strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. I am Dr Natalie Fowlert from Compass PD, and today I am here solo. Lord, help us to talk with you about reading. So a little disclaimer about me. I am a high school teacher by trade and live in the world of sarcasm, tough love and ripping off the Band-Aid. Normally I am with founder Dr Keri Hepburn and she gently reminds me to use my filter. So today, since I am here alone, I will channel my inner Keri and do my best to be on very good behavior. As it is the beginning of March and National Reading Month, I want to talk with you about a pretty hot topic that has been popping up all over and touched on almost daily in the news the Nation's Report Card. Now this becomes a conversation of contention at the Fowler home, with me having a one-sided conversation with the television. It is something that I am very passionate about and can let my emotions get the best of me as an educator. It can feel like the world is against you, pointing fingers, blaming you, and it's hard to not automatically go on the defense, and I don't know about you, but I have found myself in situations where people do not know I am an educator and they just start talking about the state of education. Or they do know and still want to bring it up. Yes, you can always change the conversation, but you could also take this as a teaching opportunity. My hopes are that I can offer you some talking points when in these situations, that might provide a new perspective and possibly change some people's minds.
Speaker 1:First, let's make sure we all have a clear understanding of the Nation's Report Card. Every year, the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which is called NAEP, assesses American children and reports their progress in the areas of math, reading, science and writing in grades 4, 8, and 12. Ultimately, it is a common measure of student achievement because it's the same test given nationwide, unlike state standardized tests that only administer the same test to students of that particular state. Now, we're not here to argue how much we love or hate these types of tests, but what we can look at is that it does offer us some insight into where our students are as a collective whole in America. Regardless of whether you like this test or not, it does provide a constant that does give us some data.
Speaker 1:In this most recent report, reading took a pretty hard hit, showing a decline from 2022. The average fourth grade score is a 215,. In eighth grade it's a 258, which doesn't really mean anything to anyone. No one understands what those numbers are, but what it does kind of translate to is that both of these grades are fall are both these numbers are falling below proficiency or below grade level in reading. More specifically, less than a third of the students in fourth and eighth grade nationwide are reading at a proficient level. So in layman's terms, that means 33% of our kids are reading on or above grade level and that means 66% of our kids are below grade level.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is concerning and I know that every teacher, especially reading and language arts, like ELA teachers, like they're feeling the brunt of this report. They are probably asking themselves many questions and probably fielding a lot of questions from administration and parents. So let me start by saying teachers, I feel you, I know that this bothers you. I know that in speaking with teachers nationwide, everyone seems to be struggling with the lack of reading or ability to read on grade level text. This is not new to any of you. You have been seeing this, you have been trying to figure out what to do about it. You have been asking for help. I am not a politician sitting on the outside looking in. I have been in classrooms. I know you are diligently trying to fix this and that you have been trying to fix it. So I just want to make it very clear that I am not pointing fingers at you and I am on your side. So let's kind of shift gears and talk about ways that you can respond when, in these very trying and uncomfortable situations, instead of automatically going on the defense, and what are some ways that you can respond when people bring this up.
Speaker 1:Now, the first thing is that many people will bring up the report card and the conversation is inevitably going to turn to vouchers. I'm not going to discuss my take on vouchers, but here's what I can say. Naep is not just a report on public school children, but on all school-age children, including private and parochial schools. Therefore, all school systems have students who are below, on and above grade level. The 66% of our kids who are reading below grade level are not comprised solely of public school children. I will venture that every teacher listening to this had at least one kiddo score proficient or advanced. I know that my kids scored advanced and that they are public school kiddos, so that 33% who are on or above grade level are not just sitting in our private parochial schools. They are spread across all of our schools in the nation. This will then open up a conversation about the population and location of many different schools.
Speaker 1:One thing that NAEP breaks down is socioeconomic differences in students. So students identified as not economically disadvantaged had scores drop in both fourth and eighth grade. So our higher socioeconomically placed kids are still going down in reading. They are not scoring at that high end. So this is something that is impacting all students, no matter what their background is. It is impacting all of them. Their scores are going down. So one thing that we can look at is, across the country, in both fourth and eighth grade, only one state, the state of Virginia, showed an increase in reading. In fourth grade Now their average score is still a 201, which is below the actual national average of that 215. Which is below the actual national average of that 215. So doesn't this beg the question of what is going on with kids that could be causing this widespread result of a decline in reading or their on-grade reading ability.
Speaker 1:The Department of Education at the federal level has very little impact on what happens in a classroom daily. And I say this because I would go into a classroom every day for, you know, 20 years and I didn't think about what the federal government was making me do. I didn't even. It didn't even cross my mind. So the funneling down from federal to state, to local districts, to then buildings is really watered down. That impact that the federal government could have is watered down by the time you get into that classroom. So what does impact all of our kids universally? What is something that is impacting all of them?
Speaker 1:And I believe that the answer here is technology. Here's where you can shift the dinner conversation away from pointing fingers at teachers and to the impact that technology has on our students. When kids are replacing books with smartphones and tablets, they are not exercising a vital muscle in their brain, are depleting. Their ability to think deeply about a given topic, either diminishes or is underdeveloped and then doesn't become developed because they're not working on that and, depending on their age, their reading level is also underdeveloped or stalled. So, depending on what age, you give them that smartphone and they start focusing on that instead of doing other things, like picking up a book, then it is going to impact their readability or their reading levels. I have recently started reading a book called the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, h-a-i-d-t, and I've also read in the last couple years I'm looking at it over here the Reader Come Home by Marianne Wolfe and Revenge of the Analog, which all really play into this idea of kids replacing reading with technology, and I think about even Beers and Propes have a little graphic organizer whatever graphic image where it talks about if you're reading for 20 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day and what that looks like on standardized test for kids.
Speaker 1:I also think about the summer reading gap that happens and a lot of times in homes where kids are forced to read or are reading in the summer, they don't have that summer slide, and so when I think about ways that you can talk with other people about this number one, it might be looking at them and saying when was the last time you saw a kid with a book in their hand versus a cell phone or a smartphone or a tablet? How often at dinner are you sitting there across the way and you see a family and parents just hand phones to kids instead of handing books to kids. I can tell you that in my house, we used to take books to restaurants and we would hand our kids a book instead of a smartphone. Now we are guilty. Believe me, I have given my kids smartphones and I did give them tablets, all of those things but there were also times that I also had a book and I would give them a book to read. Now we are not seeing that at all. We are seeing people handing smartphones to kids or tablets to kids instead of books.
Speaker 1:And when I think about ways that you can also talk about this if people don't understand that, here's a thing. I wanted to run a marathon. I am not going to be able to just go out and start running 23 miles right now. I am going to have to work up and build to that 23 miles or I'm not going to make it. It's the same thing with reading. Reading is a muscle, it is in your brain and it is a muscle that you have to work out. You have to expose yourself to the type of reading that you want to do later. I'm not going to just go run sprints. If I want to run a marathon, I can't just read 30 second Twitter feeds and think that I can to run a marathon. I can't just read 30-second Twitter feeds and think that I can then master a college-level course by reading a textbook. It's not going to work. And so that is a very important conversation that we need to start having in education with our families, with parents, with our friends, and spreading the word of the importance of picking up an actual book and reading it from cover to cover, so that you have to sustain your attention span over multiple chapters, not just 10 second, 30 second snippets here and there. I am speaking as a parent.
Speaker 1:Now my children are sophomores in high school and they recently took the ACT because I forced them to take it. They were mathematically they were not ready because they're still only in geometry, but I wanted a baseline and we have. I've made them be readers. We will say put your phone down and go pick up a book. In fact, last night I was reading the Anxious Generation, chapter 7, which is all about boys and how technology has impacted them, and I was reading it to my boys and my husband last night and they were enthralled with the information in this text. So they are 15-year-old boys and they actually enjoyed this information. But they both recently took the ACT and their highest scores were in English and reading. One of my sons got a 33 in English and a 31 in reading. One got like a 29 in English and a 28 in reading something along those lines. But that's because we make them read. We say you want to get on your phone, you want to play video games, then you need to read, and so that piece of the puzzle is something that's happening at home, it's not something that's happening at school.
Speaker 1:Now, how can you, as an educator in a classroom, fix this? How can you ensure that kids are reading? Here are a few tips, and, as we're kicking off the March reading month, I want you to consider some of these things as you are working through your classrooms, because that is one of the ways. Like you can only do what's in your locus of control, and I hear a lot of educators say well, they won't read at home. Okay, like you can't fix that, but you can set up expectations in your classroom that do expect them to read at home and eventually they'll hopefully get there, and if they don't, then at least you're putting forth the effort and the opportunity for them to become readers.
Speaker 1:So, within your classroom, here are some things you need to stop doing, and that's stop reading out loud to your kids. Stop doing the audio versions to your kids. Stop doing the audio versions to your kids when they get to those state tests. No one is reading the text to them. No one is reading it out loud to them. If they cannot read that text on their own, they are not going to be successful. So you have to cut the cord. Stop reading out loud to them. Now, that's not a blanket statement, because there are some benefits to reading out loud to them. Now, that's not a blanket statement, because there are some benefits to reading out loud to kids at all grades, but their main mode of comprehension or getting information cannot be teacher-driven, teacher reading it to them. You have to stop doing this. They have to read it on their own. Then you also need to make sure that you're giving them opportunities to read daily, every day. We know that kids need to be reading for 20 minutes every single day. If they aren't doing it at home, then you need to carve that time out in your classroom so that they are doing it.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things to tell teachers are? I talk about football coaches. If I was a football coach, am I the coach out on the field doing the work? No, are we sitting in a classroom watching game film every single day? No, the kids, the athletes, are out on the field hitting each other, running around throwing the ball. They're doing all the work. So if you just said I want you to watch this game film and then I want you to go home in your front yard and practice, how many kids are going to go do that and who are they going to practice with? So if you're not offering them opportunity to read in your classroom every single day, it would be like either you as the coach going out and doing all the plays all week during practice or you as the coach only giving them the opportunity to watch game film. Going to be successful on Friday night at the football game when they don't get to practice doing that every single day?
Speaker 1:So in your class you need to carve, you have to give something up. Yes, I know you have to give something up, but they can't do the writing if they can't read it. They can't talk deeply about it. If they can't read it. They have to be able to read it and get to that point so that they are able to do something with that text. So you have to carve out time Now.
Speaker 1:Things that you're going to notice that are going to be coming up in Compass PD is we will do a podcast. I'm going to do a podcast on book clubs and what that looks like so that we can interest kids back, get them interested back into reading so that maybe they will read outside of class. We are going to be offering webinars this summer coming up that you could be listening into. You could seek out professional development that might help you get kids back into reading and engage them in that process. We have a blog coming out this month that also is written from a high school English teacher's perspective on how to get kids back into reading and interested into reading.
Speaker 1:So when we think about all of the things that are impacting this nation's report card, it really does boil down to kids just reading. If we can get their reading back where it was, or even at new heights, let's shoot high, right. If we can get their reading back where it was or above that, then we're going to see a huge shift in that nation's report card, but it's going to start with teachers in classrooms reading, parents at home telling kids to put their phones down and pick up a book. Whatever that book is, it doesn't matter but we need to get back to that fundamental core idea of reading is important, reading from a book and pages is important, and it's the only thing that's going to push this forward. Nothing's going to change until that piece of the puzzle is put in place.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I will get off of my soapbox now and I just want to thank you for joining me today as I talked about reading and the nation's report card.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you are able to walk away with some talking points that might shift the conversation when you find yourself in those difficult situations, and also thinking about some ways that you can start attacking this within your classrooms today, and also thinking about or looking for some of those upcoming opportunities to either listen in, read in or participate in some professional learning around this so that we can get kids back into reading and engage them in the classroom. In an upcoming episode that we have, we will have Dr Stephanie Brenner and Dr Chris Greiner, who will be talking about difficult conversations that administrators have. Chris is a assistant superintendent in a large school district and he has a lot of experience in this area. So we hope that you join them on that podcast. Thank you for joining me on the Compass PD podcast. Remember, at Compass PD, we believe that every educator has the power to inspire, change and transform student learning. Stay focused, stay inspired and keep making a difference.