Philadelphia students have a new literacy curriculum. Literacy experts explain what’s changing

Public school students in kindergarten through eighth grade in Philadelphia are being taught a new literacy curriculum starting in the 2024-2025 school year. It’s called expeditionary learning, and it adheres to what literacy experts call the “science of reading.” This is a research-based skill you need to become a strong reader.

Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo is a clinical professor of literacy studies at Drexel University and previously worked as an elementary school teacher for 18 years, teaching children to read and write. She spoke to The Conversation US about the strengths and challenges of Philadelphia’s new curriculum.

How is the new literacy curriculum different?

For the past few years, the Philadelphia School District has been using its own curriculum created by Philadelphia teachers. The curriculum is shared with teachers on Google Drive and focuses on using state standards to structure and teach reading, writing, and speaking.

The district believes the new, more structured curriculum is more in tune with the science of reading and will help standardize instruction in classrooms and across schools.

The new curriculum combines so-called “word knowledge” and “world knowledge.”

Word knowledge refers to structured compound phonics. This is a way to teach letter-sound relationships that are used to spell and decipher new words. Readers first learn the sounds of letters and then combine the sounds to form words. Structured phonics follows a specific sequence and differs from analytic phonics, which teaches letter-sound relationships by first looking at the word and then breaking the word into its parts. For example, if you know how to read “bat”, you can also read other words that end in “-at”.

World knowledge refers to the use of nonfiction texts that students traditionally read in science and social studies classes to build strong background knowledge. These texts also cover social justice and environmental themes.

The lessons in this program are organized in a specific order. This differs from previous curricula, which gave teachers specific standards to teach along with texts and supporting materials, but did not have a specific order of lessons. The new curriculum also provides scripts for what to say to students and supplemental activities for English learners, students with learning disabilities, and students who are above grade level in some skills.

The curriculum is made up of modules that typically last six weeks and include themes such as “What the Sky Looks Like: A Study of the Sun, Moon, and Stars” and “The Story of Human Rights.” Each module covers a specific reading and writing skill. These include, for example, reading narrative poetry and revising and editing non-fiction works.

This theme-based instruction is designed to last one hour per day.

In grades K-2, there is a two-hour period called Foundations that is dedicated to the phonics curriculum. In the upper grades, there is a second period called ALL that reviews basic reading and writing skills and includes practice in reading, writing fluency, grammar, and vocabulary development.

Does it help students become better readers?

Parents and teachers won’t know for several years if it’s helping their students. That’s how long researchers believe it will take for standardized tests and assessments to show the impact of curriculum on student achievement.

Like students across the country, Philadelphia students struggle to meet grade-level expectations on state literacy assessments. While the district has made progress in addressing some of the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many students still have a long way to go to become proficient readers.

Are there any drawbacks?

In articles published by Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The Philadelphia Inquirer, several Philadelphia teachers expressed confidence in the intended expeditionary learning curriculum and said they believed it followed the science of reading. But they admit they struggle with the steep learning curve and intensive preparation required to put the curriculum into practice in the classroom.

I heard similar experiences firsthand from teachers in Philadelphia who participated in Drexel University’s Reading Science Day.

The new curriculum requires teachers to learn how lessons are structured. They also need to learn new texts and other learning materials such as videos, games, and handouts that are central to their instruction. You must then find out which of the proposed activities meet the needs of the actual learners in your class.

The only way to do this is to utilize as many activities as possible and take the time to decide which ones are best for your students. This can lead to pacing problems if the teacher does not move through the lesson as quickly as the intended curriculum suggests.

The world knowledge component of the new literacy curriculum also includes many hands-on activities, which I believe are appropriate. However, this can be a source of stress, especially in the first year, as teachers take time to gather, sort, and distribute the necessary materials. Teachers often have to purchase new materials or bring them from home. Over time, many teachers will have a plastic container with all the spatulas, droppers, tweezers, and other tools needed for each module, which will reduce their workload.

The new curriculum also presents challenges for some students, who need to develop the attention span and stamina to stay focused during one- to two-hour study blocks.

How were teachers trained on the new curriculum?

Teachers were offered optional paid professional development on Expeditionary Learning through the summer of 2024.

However, when implementing a new curriculum, teachers need ongoing support from colleagues and experienced users of the curriculum. Experts suggest school-based collaborative learning led by teacher experts and focused on daily classroom instruction and individual teacher coaching and feedback.

Using a more traditional professional development model, the district offers large group training on work days throughout the school year. The district also said some coaching is available from Expeditionary Learning.

What else should I consider?

New learning leads to old learning. Students build from what is known to what is new. Educational writer Natalie Wexler calls this background knowledge “the other half of Velcro.”

Research shows that new knowledge learned in class is more likely to stick when learners have background knowledge about a topic.

Traditionally, much background knowledge was taught in social studies and science classes, and Philadelphia public schools taught these subjects daily in elementary school as well.

But after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2002, schools had to meet high-stakes reading and math test standards. School districts such as Philadelphia have tried to address this problem by devoting more time to reading and math instruction in these subjects.

This had the unintended consequence of limiting knowledge of the world built from weeks of lessons on topics like dinosaurs and photosynthesis.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.