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CONTACT: Mea Anderson | [email protected]
(Springfield) — “When the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition saw results from a study last year that found Illinois to be among three states that had recovered from pandemic learning loss in reading, we wanted to know more about what was happening in classrooms,” said Barb Cohen, Policy Associate with the Legal Council for Health Justice and co-chair of the Illinois Early Literacy Coalition’s Policy Committee. Illinois adopted its first-ever state literacy plan last year, but without any mandates on school districts, the question remained about what schools were actually doing to drive improvement.
With that goal in mind, the committee began digging into that recovery data and reaching out to several districts whose English Language Arts scores had bounced back according to that analysis. New state report card data also came out amid these interviews, so committee members reached out to several other districts that saw steep gains in literacy scores as well.
Six districts agreed to share their literacy stories: Cicero SD 99, CUSD 200 (Wheaton), Morton Grove SD 70, Peoria SD 150, Rockford SD 205, and Sesser-Valier CUSD 196. These span from southern Illinois to the northern suburbs, from those with significant bilingual population to those with virtually none. Some are deeply underfunded, while others are better off. The smallest has just over 500 students and the largest just under 30,000.
“All these districts had a valuable tale to tell and, despite their differences, many of the changes fell into similar categories,” said Dr. Courtney Ratliff, a school psychologist with the organization Science of Reading Illinois, who also serves as committee co-chair. “The paper groups them into buckets we call ‘The 5 C’s: Collaboration, Coaching, Coherence, Continuous Improvement, and Calendar.’”
“This project was intended to bridge the gap between reading research and practice so we can learn from educators who decided to do something different for the students they serve. Implementation can be messy, and system change is hard, but we must do that work so we can get better literacy results for our children,” added Dr. Tinaya York, a former principal, instructional coach, owner of Literacy for Life, and member of the committee.
“Many other states have prescribed specific mandates around foundational literacy screening and instruction, but Illinois has focused its efforts on developing comprehensive guidance and encouraging change aligned to reading research and evidence,” said Dr. Shannon Hammond, an Assistant Professor of Special Education and member of the committee. “We hope other school leaders and policymakers will benefit from learning about the implementation work schools in Illinois are undertaking to improve literacy.”
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The Illinois Early Literacy Coalition includes individual and organizational supporters from across Illinois who believe the literacy crisis is urgent and solvable. We strive to improve public policy and funding to better align teacher and administrator preparation, professional development, curricula, and other supports with evidence-based instructional practices.
