A Tale of Two Schools

Christa A. Hernandez

      Choosing one of the reading programs from "A Tale of Two Schools" to implement in my own classroom was challenging because both Bearden and Walton Elementary Schools were struggling with various aspects of education; ranging from a lack of resources, to poor family environments, as well as low esteem teachers due to feeling unprepared. However, I do believe that both Project Read and Reading Mastery could be beneficial if used in the correct district. For example, in more affluent towns who are supplied with the necessary amount of supplies, resources, and educated professionals. Overall, the basis of the programs are essentially a great tool to help students read, however, when combined with the demographics and status of Walton and Bearden students, little to no progress was made. 

      Walton Elementary decided to use the program Reading Mastery, which is a prewritten script that walks teachers through each lesson word by word. The basis of the program begins with letters and their sounds and although eventually works up to higher order thinking, allows very little creativity to be implemented into the classroom when "following the directions." Therefore, it would worry me that if I chose to use this program, my classroom would become a regiment with no thinking outside of the box. There would no longer be lessons that the students would be able to relate to and remember because it would be repetitious and predictable. I find it hard that the people who wrote this program took into account every childs' different learning style or ability. Therefore, it would be hard to use such a structured text when students capabilities vary. However, even though these could be issues for most, some students could advance their reading ability. Tavares for example, may not have been caught up with the rest of his class in terms of reading level, but he did make strides in the right direction. Personally though, I would have a very rough time using this in my class due to my specific teaching style and what I believe in, as far as making learning matter to students and having them be able to use unconventional ways of learning to ensure academic progress.

      Bearden on the other hand, I think with the right training for their staff, would have had a very influential program in Project Read. Clearly this was not the case though, which is another reason I had a hard time choosing which program I would use. Yet, if all the right needs were met by both the supervisors and the teachers, I do believe that Project Read would be a more beneficial program for elementary students. If teachers were given the right amount of time and resources to learn the necessary information and were supported by the school, it would be much more creative and engaging than Reading Mastery. Using signals and phrases to me, is more helpful than reading a script word for word with no room for reinvention. Students can interact with the lesson and have more of an opportunity to be involved. Therefore, because they are more involved there would be a higher chance that they would be able to put meaning to the knowledge they are learning.