The Model

Corrective Reading was developed by SRA/McGraw-Hill as an intervention for older non-reading or struggling readers. Using explicit instruction, connected and decodable text, a systematic corrections procedure to teach phonemic awareness and blending, accuracy and fluency, general comprehension skills of cause and effect, making inferences, finding main ideas, sequencing events, and seeing humor. Comprehension skills are also developed by building on background knowledge, vocabulary, and thinking strategies that enable students to understand expository text. The questions model for students how good readers think about their reading and introduce "big ideas," which are underlying concepts or principles that serve as keys to understanding. Reasoning, analytic skills, and writing are supported by content-rich texts, introduction to research skills, persuasive and expository writing, critiques, and inductive reasoning and inquiry.

Case Study

The Goethe School is a Title I middle school serving 834 seventh and eighth graders, 790 of which are eligible for free or reduced price lunch and 41 of which are migrant. The students are mostly minority: 289 Black, 269 Asian, 190 Hispanic, 69 White, and 10 American Indian/Alaskan.
Goethe faces most of the problems that plague middle schools serving at risk kids: high poverty, high concentration of English-as-second-language students, cultural diversity leading to racial conflict and gangs. For many years, Goethe was known as the poorest performing school in one of the lowest performing districts in California: 48 percent of Goethe's seventh and eight grade students read at or below the forth grade level. The average percentile score in reading was the eighth percentile for a seventh grader and the sixth percentile for an eight grader. The average rate of learning was about a half grade equivalent in one year.

Corrective Reading is offered during a daily, 50-minute class period, in place of an elective, to supplement regular English/language arts classes. Lessons support pacing, use examples, and focus on positive reinforcement. Progress through increasingly difficult steps of the course are visible for the student through "reading checkouts." The staff consists of Corrective Reading teachers, Corrective Reading coaches, Corrective Reading site administrators. At Goethe, coaching is provided to each teacher and the school has a lead coach.

The results have been positive. "Since implementation of the program in 1998, the median scores in both reading and mathematics improved by two grade levels, indicating that the rate of progress for these students had generally quadrupled. Goethe M.S. made the largest gains on the SAT 9 for a low-achieving school in California, and achieved the fifth largest gains overall in California in reading, gaining 14 percentile points. Since implementing the program in 1998, the number of English learners scoring in the bottom quartile on the SAT 9 has been reduced by 18 percent. This reduction was greater than for other schools in the district or the state. Similarly, the number of English learners scoring at grade-level increased 8 percent (other schools in the district and the state, 3 percent)."

Sources:
Common Core of Data. National Center for Education Statistics. Public School Locator, Data for the 2000-2001 school year. Available at: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/

Summary of the Second Adolescent Literacy Workshops: Practice Models for Adolescent Literacy Success. Baltimore, Maryland. May 20, 2002. Available at:
http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/adolescent/summaryIIa.doc

Contact:

Garth Lewis
Superintendent, San Diego Unified School District
Charles M. Goethe Middle School
2250 68th AVE.
Sacramento, CA 95822-5302

Phone: (916) 433-5400
E-mail: garthle@sac-city.k12.ca.us