It’s a chilly winter morning at 95th Street School on Milwaukee’s northwest side.
Children are filing into their classrooms, while a handful of adults gather in the public school’s library to prepare for the day.
The adults are volunteer tutors with Forward Scholars. It's a group that pairs young students with tutors to improve the kids’ reading comprehension. Forward Scholars is an official partner of Milwaukee Public Schools, meaning these tutoring sessions can take place during the school day.
This morning, tutors pick up the students from class and return to the library. The adults take their seats in child-size chairs. Students and their tutors are basically eye-to-eye.
Tutor Engjellushe Kupi is working with third grader Tylen. Kupi is really excited today. She can clearly tell he practiced, because Tylen is breezing through the flashcards the pair is working through together.
Just four days earlier, these words were a challenge for him.
“So the words that he’s working with are words that use the same sounds in different words. He mixed them up last time. This time he was more focused on pronouncing the words correctly with the correct sounds," Kupi says.
"I think he practiced at home, too, because you could tell he was able to identify the words better than last time," she adds. "He really struggled last time.”
In Milwaukee's 'reading pyramid,' more students need more help
These tutoring sessions by Forward Scholars have been going on across Milwaukee for three years now.
More than 250 tutors are trained to provide what’s called “tier two” support for students between first and third grade who are struggling to read.
The phrase "tier two instruction” might sound like inside baseball. But it’s important to understand.
In a perfect world where students in a school are hitting all the right reading milestones, reading instruction would be set up like a pyramid.
At the bottom of the pyramid is “tier one instruction.” It’s traditional reading lessons that take place in a large classroom with other students. Ideally, most students (like 80%) would learn to read this way.
The second level of the pyramid is called tier two instruction, which ideally would be needed by another 15% of kids in order to read on grade level. Tier two support can be small group or one-on-one work with a reading teacher or Forward Scholars tutor.
At the top of the pyramid is tier three instruction. Typically only 5% of students need this kind of help. It’s usually intensive literacy instruction to help a child work through a learning disability like dyslexia.
That’s how it’s supposed to work.
However, literacy educators say that Milwaukee’s pyramid is basically turned upside down. More kids need higher amounts of help.
“So 89% of our children need tier two and tier three (instruction)," according to Dr. Howard Fuller, a former MPS superintendent and advocate of choice and charter schools.
Together with the current MPS superintendent Dr. Brenda Cassellius, Fuller launched the Milwaukee Reading Coalition. The group is bringing together district leaders and private groups like Herb Kohl Philanthropies and the United Community Center to prioritize reading instruction.
The coalition is just one part of a renewed push to turn around literacy rates in Milwaukee. A literacy plan launched by the school district this year requires teachers to be trained in the science of reading.
“We must make a significant difference at the tier one level of instruction," Fuller says. "And the only way that we're going to do that is to have a focused process to ensure that teachers get trained in the science of reading.”
Catching up on reading in early grades helps students avoid problems later, tutors say
It’s easy to see how the inversion of this pyramid — or more kids needing more help — can leave schools underprepared when trying to help their students succeed.
That’s why tutors are working at 95th Street School.
Kupi, the tutor who is working with Tylen, has a six-year-old son at 95th Street School.
But she started tutoring with the program after teaching for 10 years at South Division High School.
Working with high school students, Kupi says she saw the compounding effects of reading below grade level. And she was determined to fix it.
“It’s a lot more work to try and catch up and close the gap," she says. "I’m hoping that they’ll be doing much better. Thinking of Tylen, once he moves into his different grade levels and eventually high school, I think he’ll be better prepared to be in the levels of classes he needs to be.”
With one-on-one tutoring, students can jump two grade levels in reading
On a larger scale, there’s evidence that these tutoring sessions are working.
On average, students in the program advance by nearly two full grade levels in reading fluency and accuracy. That’s after just seven months of working with a tutor.
The program isn't in every school, though. This year, it's tutoring students at Bruce-Guadalupe Community School, Bryant Elementary, Forest Home Avenue School, Gilbert Stuart Elementary, Greenfield Bilingual School, Hmong American Peace Academy, Lloyd Barbee Montessori, Maple Tree Elementary, 95th Street School and Oliver Wendell Holmes School.
Carrie Strieff-Stuessy, the executive director of Forward Scholars and its one-on-one tutoring program, told me that most students need only one year of tutoring.
But the effects last a lifetime.
“You know, we do know that if kids are reading proficiently by the end of third grade, that they are four times more likely to graduate from high school," she says. "And if they graduate from high school, then they're more likely to achieve lifelong success. So that's why those kindergarten through third grade years are really so imperative for kids.”
This is the second story in WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal's series, Turning the Page: Teaching Milwaukee to Read. You can read the first story here.
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.
