Phonics is hot again as NJ schools fight COVID learning loss

“Sss-ah-khhh.”

That sound recently filled the classroom of teacher Keely Hassert’s first grade classroom at Clifton School 17.

Hassert’s students were breaking the word “sock” into its three main sounds.

“What about ‘back?’ I hurt my back,” Hassert said, pretending to wince. “Why not spell it as ‘bac’?”

“Because ‘ck’ falls behind the short vowel sound,” her students chanted back.

Hassert then had the kids watch her mouth for the “th” in “thin.”

Foundational skills for early readers are back under the microscope after the COVID-19 pandemic showed that something was missing from the way children learned to read.

During the pandemic, when 6- and 7-year-olds had to wear masks during their lessons, much of the sounding-out, the facial expressions and the signs of encouragement were lost.

In 2019, 42% of fourth graders in New Jersey were proficient in English, but in 2022 that number had dropped to 38%, according to an analysis of national data provided by FutureEd, a K-12 think tank.

The latest and widely embraced solution to address this drop in reading skills is to have teachers use the Science of Reading approach, emphasizing lettersound connections and other reading pillars like vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

The program is designed to help kids decode words on a page without using context cues or pictures, and experts welcomed its foundational approach after it was promoted in a report issued by the National Reading Panel in 2000.

Revising standards

States have rushed to pass laws related to the pandemic’s learning losses. New York City announced that its schools would adopt Science of Reading curricula this academic year.

New Jersey revised its own English language arts standards in October, incorporating elements of Science of Reading, said JerseyCAN, a K-12 advocacy group that has campaigned for reading reform in the state.

Though New Jersey continued to rank higher than the national average in fourth grade reading skills after the pandemic, a deeper look at the numbers shows problems that can be overlooked because of the success of the state’s many affluent small districts.

Elementary schoolers in Paterson were trailing the state in 2022 scores, with 15.4% of third graders reading at or above proficiency, compared with 83.7% in Millburn, a recent JerseyCAN report showed.

But even in wealthy Millburn, in Essex County, Black students lag well behind others in reading proficiency. In 2022, 95.7% of Asian third graders and 75% of white students in Millburn were proficient in reading, compared with 30.8% of Black third graders.

So the changed English language standards were “a positive, critical step,” JerseyCAN Executive Director Paula White said in a statement last month.

“Drawing attention back to the structure of the English language is the right thing to do for kids,” White said.

“Without a strong grasp of how to apply decoding skills to texts, many students will never know the joy of curling up with a book about their own heritage or their favorite hobby, nor will they be able to access content in subject areas that serve as a gateway to various professions and trades,” she said.

New Jersey’s revised standards “are focusing a lot more on the foundational reading and foundational writing skills,” said Josephine Solorzano, the K-8 English

language supervisor in the North Bergen School District.

This is a key change, she said. The “whole language” approach of the 1970s and ‘80s — gauging the word by looking at it instead of breaking it down — stops working in higher grades, when kids read more complex material.

“Students really can’t advance grades until they have got a good foundation,” Solorzano said.

Renewed focus after pandemic

In Clifton and North Bergen, elementary English teachers use a “balanced literacy” approach, prevalent since the ’90s, that balances phonics with fostering a love of reading and story. Both districts use Wilson’s Fundations, a curriculum for early-grade literacy grounded in Science of Reading techniques.

But the renewed focus on reading grew from alarming reports about third and fourth graders lagging in reading after the pandemic.

“The younger children struggled with writing and communication ... because they were all kind of in their own little island” during the pandemic, said Valerie Kropinack, the K-8 language arts supervisor for Clifton Public Schools.