A tale of two schools

 A “Tale of Two Schools” is an inspirational documentary about two vulnerable schools.  Both schools have the same goal and in the end they want their students to thrive as readers. The first school, Walton Elementary, adopted a program called reading mastery. This teaches letters, sounds, spelling, and writing. The teachers as well as the entire staff are extremely powerful and demonstrate positive attitudes. They have a tremendous amount of love in their hearts for their students and due to that, achievement took place. They truly want their students to succeed and the children saw and understood that. As a result, these students were motivated, focused, determined, and disciplined. They developed a passion for learning to read as well as a passion for school in general. Reading Mastery was a very organized and structured program. They enforced and had their students master discipline prior to incorporating and beginning reading mastery. This allowed each student to demonstrate exceptional behavior and be alert during each lesson, absorbing the material being taught instead of having it go in through one ear and out the other. This also allowed each individual to have an affective learning experience. I like how they were aware of Tavaras and recognized that he was struggling. They did not let him hide behind all the students who were progressing at a faster pace. They took him aside to work with a separate teacher, which allowed Tavaras to learn at his own pace, feeling confident in his success. There are some negative aspects to reading master. To me, the students are responding in a way that is very robotic. They also are not reading books, just words. However, knowing the outcome and seeing how affective it is for both the students and teachers made it completely worthwhile.  The reactions the staff had when they reviewed the test scores were mind-blowing and that part of this documentary will never be forgotten. The second school, Bearden Elementary, seemed to have more negative factors than positive ones. They had the right motives and goals but their teachers were not prepared for incorporating project read into their classrooms. For example, Miss Todd openly admitted that she was not very knowledgeable in teaching students how to read. She only had two days of training and she felt very unprepared, on top of not having the appropriate materials, resources, or books. Due to this, her students were not as focused, motivated and disciplined as students at Walton were.  They did have success, but it took much longer than it should have. The school in general needs stability and teachers that commit long-term. One key element of literacy that was not used in either program was comprehension, which is a vital tool in learning. Just because a child can read words does not mean that they understand what they are reading. They are basically just reading a variety of symbols.

  I would prefer to teach the reading mastery program because I feel it is more affective and valuable. I found the techniques and strategies to be very useful. Sounding out each letter individually and then putting those sounds together to create the word is phenomenal. You can tell that the students benefited from that method and really understood what they were learning. If they struggled with pronouncing words in their essays, they would use that same method that the teachers used with them. They remember what they’re being taught. That says something. As a teacher using reading mastery, you have to be ready for the challenge. It is definitely hard work but if you believe in it and never lower your standards, you will be successful at it. Just as this program is used and successful in an inner city school, it can most definitely be implemented in an affluent school. We see that the school not to far from Walton adopted this program and each student made significant progress. It does not matter if a classroom is filled with primarily African Americans or Caucasians, as long as you have committed teachers and the right program, learning to read is possible.  In the end, the most important part of this entire documentary was that both schools recognized that there was a problem and they both wanted a solution. Without this realization, success would not take place.