Located in Silicon Valley, Newark Junior High School serves students in the city of Newark, which maintains a small-town atmosphere despite its close proximity to San Jose and San Francisco. The school has more than 1,130 students in grades seven and eight, approximately 10 percent of whom are English learners and 20 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC), now known as Springboard Schools, provided initial start-up funding to establish this literacy model. Newark Junior High staff received funding, staff development, and support in their efforts to produce students who "think critically, communicate effectively, and act responsibly". The school uses two primary approaches to improving student empowerment: social and ethical development; and increased literacy. An ongoing cycle of inquiry is used to assess program effectiveness. A site leadership team offers suggestions for school improvement based on school data.
The ultimate goal of the literacy program is for teachers and students to have a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies to assist in making sense of content area reading. The school's literacy coordinator manages all aspects of the literacy reform, including staff development, department literacy meetings, Family Reading Nights, the management of the cycle of inquiry, and the processing of feedback and data from students and teachers. A core of literacy coaches (one teacher per department) attend WestEd's Reading Apprenticeship training, then train the other school staff members in the use of common strategies for infusing literature into the content areas. The model includes personal, social, cognitive, and knowledge-building dimensions and promotes readers' interaction with content area text within a classroom community. All special-needs students are mainstreamed for elective wheel and general classes whenever possible.
In a series of Family Reading Nights, parents and their children are taught reading strategies they can use at home to help with content area reading. Book fairs to promote the purchase of books for independent reading, availability of babysitting for younger siblings, and Spanish translation have resulted in excellent parent turnout. The school collaborates with a nearby high school and with elementary schools in the area for the annual Spotlight on Reading, an event for all grade levels that features lessons that reflect families' interests.
Indicators of this model's success include state test results, local reading and writing test scores, surveys of students' reading, and students' work.
Schoolwide Literacy Goals
- Teachers and students will have a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies available to them to make meaning of content area reading.
- Students will better understand content area text as measured
by 5 percent growth in proficiency level for all students on the California
Standards Test in English-language arts and a 10 percent growth
for the school's Hispanic and African American target population.
- Students will display similar growth on the school's local measure.
- Ninety percent of academic teachers will infuse a reading comprehension strategy into their content area at least once per unit or once per month.
- Nonacademic teachers will reinforce these skills at least once per quarter.
Criteria for Identifying Students at Risk of Below-Grade-Level Performance in Reading and Writing
- Local measure (a reading and writing assessment)
- Data from standardized testing.
- Benchmark assessments
Content Literacy
- Reading Apprenticeship model from WestEd's Strategic Literacy
Initiative:
- Invisible reading processes are made visible by teachers who make metacognitive conversation a norm in the classroom
- Four interconnected dimensions: personal; social; cognitive; and knowledge-building
- Interaction with content area text in a community of readers and thinkers
- Question-answer relationships, clarifying, summarizing, predicting, schema, and reciprocal teaching explicitly taught by teachers.
Library Media Program
- Library stocked with thousands of educational and recreational books available for student checkout
- Large collection of videos and audiotapes for classroom use that tie into the curriculum
- Computer resources in the library that are connected to the Internet so that students can access resources and information online to improve their research skills
- Computer skills and concepts integrated throughout the curriculum
- Computer labs used to conduct paperless classrooms
Home/School/Community Literacy Partnerships
- Family Reading Nights (parent turnouts ranging from 80 to 200)
- Reading strategies taught to parents for use at home to help with their child's content area reading
- Availability of Spanish translation and child care
- Book fairs to promote the purchase of books for independent reading
Professional Development/Ongoing Support
- Literacy coaches attend WestEd's Reading Apprenticeship training, then train other staff during staff development days. A stipend for attending the WestEd training is provided for one teacher per department.
- Implementation is monitored by classroom cycle-of-inquiry reports and student surveys.
- A teacher practice rubric is used to assess teachers' growth.
- Training is scaffolded over three years:
- Year one: Metacognition, schema, and summarizing were taught.
- Year two: Questioning, clarifying, and predicting are being taught.
- Year three: Reciprocal teaching will be taught and reciprocal teaching strategies will be reviewed.
- At monthly department literacy meetings, literacy coaches support the implementation of strategies by having teachers share lessons and analyze students' work.
Other
- The literacy reform coordinator receives regular release periods
and manages all aspects of the literacy reform. The coordinator:
- Plans staff development, department literacy meetings, and Family Reading Nights.
- Manages the cycle of inquiry at all levels (whole school,
department, and classroom), which involves getting and processing
feedback and data from students and teachers to move the
reforms forward.
- Newark educators are creating stronger partnerships with other
district schools by working closely with two elementary schools
and a high school:
- Newark invites sixth grade teachers to observe the school's classes and reading lessons.
- Newark teachers are invited to observe elementary school classes.
- Stipends and release periods are funded by a grant from the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC).
Evidence of Success (as of 2003)
- Attained a 51-point gain on the 2000-01 API and met all subgroup growth targets.
- Attained a 27-point gain on the 2001-02 API and met all subgroup growth targets.
- Analyzed, by department, students' work on a monthly basis to drive the improvement process.
- Received positive feedback from parents.
- Drew parent turnouts ranging from 80 to 200 on Family Reading Nights.
- Conducted a local reading/writing test in which students read a content area article, answered standards-based multiple choice questions and open-ended metacognitive questions, and wrote a response that was scored on a 4-point rubric.
For More Information Contact:
Newark Junior High School
Newark Unified School District
Marge Leonard, English Chair
mleonard@nusd.k12.ca.us
Tera Erlendson
School Literacy Coach and Coordinator
510-818-307
terlends@nusd.k12.ca.us
