Step inside a sixth grade classroom in Milwaukee and there are silent clues about how well each student can read.
Teacher Anna Luberda looks for two specific things. She has been teaching since 2010, and is now working at Victory Elementary on the city’s south side.
The first clue is what students are choosing to read.
At the library, Luberda takes a book off the shelf that a strong sixth grade reader might pick up. It's called "The Whisperwicks," and it's 419 pages with a fantastical forest scene illustrated on the front.
“This is one of those books that has like 30 characters, and they all have really interesting backstories," Luberda says. "Those are all the types of things that, like very advanced readers are going to look for.”
The second book she pulls is one she chose for a less proficient reader. It’s called "Click," and it's about half the number of pages as the first one. "Click" is an entirely illustrated graphic novel — meaning the pages are set up as comic strips, with four to five frames per page.
“Typically, this is something that a struggling reader in my sixth grade class would pick up because they love finishing things fast," Luberda explains. "They get a sense of, like, achievement when they finish a graphic novel, because it was quick for them and it was easy, and that's great.”
This isn’t to say that advanced readers don’t love graphic novels. But when 12-year-olds are consistently picking up texts like these, Luberda says it can signal that they’re having trouble following more complex story lines.
Now to the second clue that a child might be struggling with reading.
“I can tell when… they're not using a writing utensil while they're reading. That's a big thing. They need to have a pencil or a highlighter or something," she says. "Those are things I look out for right off the bat, to see who's engaged and who's not engaged.”
Being engaged while reading could feel like an arbitrary thing. But by the sixth grade, it’s what separates the kids who get it from the kids who don’t.
Milwaukee's literacy rates for public school students have fallen since 2009
The early years of elementary school are crucial building blocks in a child's journey to literacy, and third grade is the big turning point.
“There's been data out there forever that if you don't know how to read by third grade, your chances of graduating from high school are mild at best," says Howard Fuller, a former MPS superintendent who has helped launch a literacy coalition across the city.
Fuller is also a big supporter of school choice and charter schools — three charter school campuses around Milwaukee bear his name.
He says that in Milwaukee, our literacy rates for young students are getting worse.
Data back that up.
In 2009, just under 40% of fourth grade students in Milwaukee Public Schools were reading at a basic level. That wasn’t great. The national average was 67%. Reading at a basic level, by the way, is not the same as reading on grade level.
Now, just 27% of Milwaukee's public school fourth graders are reading at that same basic level.
"This is not just a MPS problem. This is a city-wide problem," Fuller says. "And I know people who are part of this process right now, who live in communities where they thought their kids were really learning how to read and they didn't, and they're having issues now as young adults, even, even people who have the resources to help their kid.”
Fuller is referring to schools in Wisconsin that used a method for teaching students to read called the Whole Language Theory. Popular in the 80s through the 2000s, the now-debunked theory encouraged students to use context clues and memorization over learning phonics.
Learning to read using phonics includes correlating specific sounds with letters or groups of letters that appear in words.
The impacts of two decades of whole language learning are still felt by families in Milwaukee.
Marva Herndon is a board director of Milwaukee Public Schools with four grown adult daughters. At a board meeting last year, she shared that she vividly remembered the troubles her youngest daughter had learning to read.
"My youngest child came through MPS at a point where they had switched to whole language. And you as reading specialists understand what difficulty that was," she said to the district staff. "So I’m jumping for joy here to see that that goes away forever and ever."
The whole language approach to reading left some students unable to piece together words by their sounds. Now well into adulthood, those students may permanently skip words they don’t know when reading.
Following suit with state law, Milwaukee launches a literacy plan
Now, the pendulum is swinging back very mightily in Wisconsin.
Two years ago, the Legislature passed Act 20, which requires Wisconsin school districts to employ a “science of reading” curriculum instead of one rooted in the Whole Language Theory.
This year, Milwaukee Public Schools launched its literacy plan to try to turn around its falling literacy rates. The plan focuses on training educators on how to teach phonics, fluency, vocabulary and written language.
Superintendent Dr. Brenda Cassellius says the plan includes 40 hours of teacher training during the 2025-26 school year. The LETRS training program will give teachers a new framework from which they teach students how to read.
“We believe that all students can read and literacy opens the door to learning in all other subjects," she said in a news release in September. "Our educators will use the district’s new literacy plan to help us drive stronger achievement.”
Howard Fuller, the former superintendent, says that major changes are key to Milwaukee’s future as a city.
“If we’ve got thousands and thousands and thousands of kids who literally can't read, how does the city grow in a way that we want to be in it?" he asks.
Welcome to the first story of WUWM's series on elementary literacy, titled Turning the Page: Teaching Milwaukee to Read.
A new series from WUWM: Turning the Page: Teaching Milwaukee to Read
We’ll look at the district’s plan to improve literacy by changing the way kids will learn to read.
We’ll also hear from community groups trying to bridge the gap with one-on-one instruction.
And we'll talk to teachers and parents trying to help their children move forward.
Katherine Kokal is the education reporter at 89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee's NPR. Are you helping your child learn to read or do you have questions about literacy in Milwaukee? You can reach Katherine at kokal@uwm.edu.
