Hillsborough has a new way of teaching kids to read. Inside one classroom.

After years of disappointing results, the school district has turned to a method based on phonics that is said to show promise.

Tampa Bay Times | By Marlene Sokol | February 13, 2024

The lesson begins with a little song and ends with a roller coaster cheer.

The 30 minutes in between could be described as tedious. But 22 second graders don’t think so, and they give it their unwavering attention.

Seated shoulder-to-shoulder on a multicolored rug, they learn about five ways to form a long “U” sound and four ways to form a long “I.”

They learn how an “A” sometimes sounds like a short “O,” especially when it follows a “W.”

On and on goes teacher Barbara Zimmer, clicking through a slide show in a recent lesson and directing the students to write words and letter sounds on marker boards.

What the veteran teacher is doing in these daily lessons at Bay Crest Elementary School could hold the answer to Hillsborough County’s deficiency in student reading skills.

Hillsborough students trail slightly behind the rest of the state in English language arts, as measured by state exams. Tired of disappointing results, the school district commissioned a team of consultants in 2019 to find out why. The answers they uncovered included inconsistent teaching methods and a short supply of culturally relevant texts.

District leaders tried, under a succession of superintendents, to produce stronger readers.

But the last batch of test results in 2023 were not much better. Fifty percent of the state’s students scored at least a Level 3 in English language arts, which is considered passing. That number was 48% for Hillsborough, with the biggest gaps in third and fourth grades.

Zimmer, a teacher for nearly 20 years and a Teacher of the Year finalist for the district this year, had long wondered why so many students struggled to read.

“I felt like the district did a good job of trying to put things together,” she said. “But I felt that not one thing really meshed and really went together.”

She scoured teacher websites, listened to podcasts and shopped for materials until she heard about the University of Florida Literacy Institute, commonly known by the acronym UFLI, pronounced “You Fly.”

She bought a $70 manual from the institute and tried the system on her first graders last year.

Their reading improved, she said. An assistant principal showed interest. Soon, other teachers at the Town ’N Country school were using it in classes as young as kindergarten.

Separately, district leaders were exploring various teaching programs, said Tracie Bergman, executive director of literacy. Impressed by the University of Florida program and encouraged by the success at Bay Crest, they expanded it to other elementary schools, where it is now standard.

One key problem the program addresses is a prior weakness in kindergarten through second grade instruction. Schools were so focused on state tests, which begin in third grade, there was no systematic way to make sure younger children acquired foundational skills.

Bergman said the program has tools to help teachers track student progress and help them in small groups to catch up.

Teaching products like this one stress what educators call “the science of reading,” which means they are guided by research.

An important component is phonics, which teaches the reader how to decode words through letters and letter sounds. Educators have long debated the relative importance of phonics, with many preferring so-called “whole language” methods that teach through images, word recognition and context.

In recent years, phonics has gained popularity. More than a dozen states, including Florida, have new laws requiring the science of reading — with phonics as a key component — at the heart of instruction. A system of guessing called “the three cueing method” is no longer allowed in Florida classrooms.

For Zimmer, the UF institute’s program works because of the way lessons systematically build upon each other, then circle back so they are reinforced. Children in the recent lesson learned that “ea” can sometimes produce a short vowel sound, as in “thread.” Later Zimmer says, “I know that I just learned that ‘ea’ spells ‘eh.’ So I’m going to read this word, ‘head.’” After that: “Read,” “bread,” “meant.”

The 30 minutes include a sequence of writing words after changing just one letter: Pause, cause, case, cane, can, fan, fawn. This exercise, sometimes called a word chain, helps solidify connections in the brain between letters and the sounds they represent. A student asks if “fawn” is really a word. Zimmer tells her, “a fawn is a young deer,” and the child smiles.

There is handwriting practice. And the following day the children will work in teams to find words that fit the newly learned patterns.

Zimmer can easily diffuse any fidgeting with teacher phrases such as “eyes on me” or “show me you’re ready.”

Speaking after the lesson, she said she was surprised at how easy it is to keep the children’s attention. ”That’s another thing that hooked me,” she said. “Right at the beginning, they were just hungry for it.”

While phonics is important in the early grades, it is not the only element of the science of reading. Current research also recognizes the importance of background knowledge, vocabulary and language structures if a student is to advance from decoding words to enjoying a novel.

Zimmer said that in her class, children are reading Dr. Seuss, the Lego books, and the Amelia Bedelia and Fancy Nancy series for pleasure.

“They read all different types of stuff,” she said, including books about animals from her personal library. She has read one so many times, she said, “that book’s falling apart.”