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| As fourth-grader Diana Camacho raises her hand, teachers Lori Hollis, front, Morella Bermudez and Crystal Larsen carefully watch a small group of children learn to read and spell through the Seeing Stars program at Temple Heights Elementary School in Oceanside on Thursday. The teachers are among several from Vista Unified campuses going through Lindamood-Bell Intensive Reading Clinic.
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VUSD works to implement new reading program
VISTA ---- When Joyce Bales took over as Vista Unified School District superintendent in June, she came with some definite goals, including closing the achievement gap and raising test scores.
She also came with a plan for how to achieve those goals: a series of reading-focused learning methods known as Lindamood-Bell.
Now, only three months later, the district has already started to implement the program in nine of its schools, making it the first district in the state and only the fourth in the nation to adopt the system at more than one or two campuses.
"I'm really confident that it will make a difference," Bales said about the program. "We will see significant improvements this year."
Bales first learned about the Lindamood-Bell techniques eight years ago while she was deputy superintendent of Colorado's Pueblo School District 60, the first district in the nation to embrace the program. Within a few years, that district saw impressive gains in state test scores, especially among its large population of poor and Latino students.
Vista Unified board members have said they hope that success will be repeated here.
The program focuses on teaching students to read using all of their senses, through visualization and description.
"If I'm reading a story, I'm having kids try to think about making a picture in their head," said Imelda Jasso, a first-grade teacher at Crestview who has received training in the program. "I tell them to make a movie in their head."
By picturing what they're hearing, students become more active when listening to a story, Jasso said.
"There's a lot more interaction," she said. "Instead of just sitting there and hearing you talk ---- there's a lot more dialogue."
The program
The district is paying Lindamood-Bell, the company that created the program, $823,000 this year to implement the teaching methods at nine schools. This comes out to roughly $91,000 per campus.
The nine campuses with the lowest test scores were selected for the program this year, though administrators have said they expect it to expand in the next few years. The schools already participating are Beaumont, Bobier, Crestview, Foothill Oak, Olive Temple Heights elementary schools; Casita Center for Technology, Science and Math; Lincoln and Washington middle schools; and Vista Focus Academy.
Each of the schools will use different levels of the teaching method, officials said.
"It's not a one-size-fits-all program," said Paul Worthington, director of research and development for Lindamood-Bell. "It's extremely customized."
All teachers at each campus have received training to implement aspects of the technique into normal classroom instruction.
Students who need more help will be paired in small groups for intensive instruction from teachers who have received more training in the processes.
Almost 400 students from the nine schools are expected to receive the intensive intervention during the first 10 weeks of the program. By the end of the school year, roughly 1,000 children are expected to go through the intervention, which usually lasts two hours a day for 10 weeks.
About 40 teachers in the district have been trained to teach the intensive reading classes.
For students who need even more help, two clinics are already operating at Temple Heights and Vista High School, where they can get more directed individual instruction.
Bales said she hopes to eventually have a reading clinic in all 30 of the district's schools.
Thirsty for change
The reading program is broken down into three "learning processes": one focusing on phonics, another on visualization and the third on spelling. It was started in 1986 by speech pathologist Patricia Lindamood, her daughter, Phyllis, and reading specialist Nanci Bell as an expensive private service for individual children.
Children deserve to benefit from intensive reading intervention even if their families can't afford the $10,000 to $20,000 the individual programs can cost, Bales said.
"If children are not learning, it is our responsibility as adults to make it happen," she said.
Vista Unified, like many other districts, has used the system to teach children with learning disorders such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.
Studies ---- including one published earlier this year in the American Educational Research Journal ---- show the program has been successful in teaching students learning to speak English, a key demographic in the Vista Unified district.
The system works as well for native English speakers as it does for those still learning to speak the language, said Sue Blew, a first-grade teacher at Temple Heights.
"For second-language learners, they get a vocabulary they have not been exposed to," she said. "For children with a pretty good language content, they get a way to verbalize and express themselves at a higher level."
In order to oversee the implementation of the program, Lindamood-Bell will provide a coordinator for each of the participating schools. Angelica Benson is in charge of districtwide coordination.
Teachers and administrators at Vista Unified have eagerly embraced the program, Benson said.
"They're really ready and thirsty for making changes," she said. "Our real goal is districtwide change."
Vicki Corea, principal at Temple Heights Elementary, said she is thrilled that her campus was one of those selected for the program.
"I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it's going to make a tremendous impact on children," she said. "It is just a huge, huge gift."
'Wake-up call'
After receiving disappointing state test scores, trustees at Pueblo School District 60 decided to bring in the Lindamood-Bell program at the district's lowest-performing school in 1998.
"I think the state assessment was the best thing that ever happened for the children in Pueblo," Bales said, "because it was a real wake-up call."
By the time Bales left the district earlier this year, there was a reading clinic in each of the district's 32 campuses.
The change was not without critics. Many people complained about the cost of the process, while others questioned whether it would be successful.
It turned out to be very successful, raising scores at many schools in its first year.
Less than 10 years after the district's abysmal showing in the state's first assessments in 1997, the district elementary school students continue to beat state averages, especially for poor and Latino students.
"The reason I feel real confident about it is because I know it works," Bales said about the program.
Bales said she wishes she would have implemented the program even more quickly in Pueblo, and is starting much more aggressively in Vista Unified. She said she hopes that the district can add another nine schools to the program next fall and have all schools included by 2008.
Blew, the Temple Heights teacher, said she thinks the program will not only help kids to read better but encourage them to do it more often.
"It makes them excited about reading," she said. "It makes them excited about writing and makes them excited to be able to express themselves."
Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 631-6622 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.