By NEIL ZOLOT
NORTH READING — The 2024-25 school year could include a new literacy program for students in kindergarten through second grade following a first reading approval of it by the School Committee Monday night.
“Curriculum leaders have worked on this for years,” Superintendent Dr. Patrick Daly told the School Committee members. “It’s a shift in direction and our approach that will affect all students.”
“North Reading went looking for a new literacy curriculum,” added Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Sean Killeen. “We look for curricula that give us more challenges and opportunities for students to succeed. We want to make sure we pick up students as early as possible to give them the supports they need as early as possible, so they can stay on grade level.”
Called Wit and Wisdom, it will include and enhance existing components of literacy, namely building foundational skills of letter and word recognition and engaging with complex texts and writing. Background knowledge, literacy, and skills with vocabulary language structure and verbal reasoning are “strands that are woven into skilled reading” in a theory known as Scarborough’s Rope, formulated in 2001 by Connecticut-based psychologist and literacy expert Hollis Scarborough.
“If you have a weakness in one, you’ll have a weakness in reading comprehension,” explained Little School second grade teacher Rosie Brennan. “We’re looking for ways to increase engagement with complex texts. Engagement with complex texts needs to be available for all students so they can engage in skilled reading.”
In 2022 and 2023 the School Department researched and selected programs to field-test for grades K-5 and formed a Literacy Curriculum Council to review and analyze how it worked. Teachers in the lower grades, K-2, were most interested.
The system includes study through five “content stages,” which are:
- Wonder: What do I notice and wonder about the text?
- Organize: What is happening in the text?
- Reveal: What does a deeper exploration of the text reveal?
- Distill: What is the essential meaning of the text?
- Know: How does the text build my knowledge of the topic?
As stated in a report presented to the School Committee: “Wit and Wisdom meets our needs. It teaches language, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency strands of the key aspects of reading; connects to the foundational skills we already use; and teaches structured grammar, sentence structure and syntax. A major focus is on building cumulative knowledge over time with history, biographical study, science content, and relevant events and concepts. Writing is embedded and has students writing in response to texts.”
“Building knowledge is so important in increasing comprehension,” Hood School Reading Specialist Paula Crosby said.
Another component of the program, according to the report, is its “major focus on student discussion and student-driven talk about texts with strong teacher modeling and guidance using authentic and meaningful texts [which] promotes social and emotional learning with topics covered and by building student communication discourse and collaboration.”
“One of the most important aspects is using authentic texts,” Crosby believes.
The new literary program dovetails with Governor Maura Healey’s “Literacy Launch,” a five-year strategy to improve early literacy education by expanding access to high quality, evidence-based reading instruction.
Implementing new curricula has its challenges, however. “Whenever teachers get new curricula there’s stress,” Killeen said. “It’s important we think of organic ways to answer questions. The leaders and other teachers are willing to provide feedback in a non-supervisory way.”
The School Committee approved use of Wit and Wisdom in a First Reading. Killeen hopes full approval will “translate to the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. I’m hoping this will move the needle, but it will take time to see if it does.”
This spring and summer teachers will meet to plan for the implementation of Wit and Wisdom. On September 25 there will be a parent/family informational meeting. “Hopefully I can get materials into the teacher’s hands so they know where we’re going,” Killeen said.
Killeen also believes Wit and Wisdom will enable students to be more engaged in learning in general. “They’ll be able to tell you about what they’re learning in school,” he said to the parents in attendance or watching the meeting remotely.