(gentle music) - [Derek] Coming up on "Learning from Maine."

Literacy scores across the country have fallen, especially since the pandemic and especially in Maine.

What should be done?

The teachers, students, and families at Brunswick's Kate Furbish Elementary just might be illuminating the way forward.

- You have the right to a good quality education.

(gentle music) - As a former high school English teacher, I have a confession to make.

I have no clue how to teach people to read.

I can help kids find meaning in a book, but teaching a kid how to convert a mess of sequence letters into sounds and meaning that communicate the writer's intent in a language with more exceptions and rules where TWO is pronounced two and not two, to me that's pure magic, requiring a certified wizard.

In other words, a first or second grade teacher.

And the wizards have never been so needed right here in Maine, right now.

In a time of underwhelming test scores and ubiquitous screens, how can we get kids not just to read and write well, but to love doing it, to hunger for the next book more than the next cute video?

Well, the good news is that the wizards at Kate Furbish Elementary School in Brunswick have agreed to let us peek behind the curtain.

♪ Ram sam sam ♪ ♪ Guli, guli, guli, guli, guli ram sam ♪ - [Derek] And to look right into their classrooms.

On this episode of "Learning from Maine," we'll witness how this pre-K to two school is using the latest science on reading sprinkled with local magic and love to create readers and writers for life.

- What's this word?

- [Everyone] Responsibility.

- Let's say it together please.

- [Everyone] Responsibility.

Let's clap that one.

It's a big one.

- [Everyone] Responsibility.

- Let's chin it.

- [Everyone] Responsibility.

And wail it, my favorite.

All the parts.

- [Derek] No matter if you're a brand new teacher or a 20-year vet, teaching kids to read and write is hard.

- I think the time and the planning that goes into it is probably bigger than anything else that I've seen in teaching.

- When they come in, quite a few of them said that they weren't readers and they don't read.

- It's not like learning to talk or learning to walk.

You're not wired to do it, you have to learn it.

And it takes a lot and everybody's brain does it in kind of its own unique way.

- [Derek] These teachers recognize the stakes could not be higher.

- When you teach kids to be readers and to be writers, they find themselves.

They can really share so much of themselves through their writing.

Then I'm not just teaching you how to read a book, I'm teaching you how to understand the world.

- I was a bit petrified of thinking about teaching kids to read.

That's a big moment.

I didn't know if I had it in me.

- [Derek] When it comes to learning to read, there's a lot of anxiety for both teachers and students.

So Markus, could you spell your last name for us?

- T-A-Y-L or E-R.

- [Derek] Markus is a second grader and new to Kate Furbish.

Last year was tough.

- My old school didn't have very good teachers and they kept yelling at me for no reason.

- [Derek] Charlie's another second grader.

His teacher, Mrs.

Sciacca noticed he seemed lost.

- He just sort of was going through the motions, maybe taking some shortcuts.

He would just put any old book into his book box and sort of read a little bit and then maybe pretend to read and maybe just look at the pictures.

- [Derek] His greatest challenge seemed to be getting started on his writing.

- How do you figure out a story when you're stuck and you don't know what to write about?

Do you have a plan for that?

- Not really.

- You and I played a game.

- [Derek] When I met Charlie early in the school year, he did have a clear goal.

- At the end of the year, my goal is to write big stories with all the lines filled up.

- [Derek] Charlie's dad understands his son's dilemma.

- He wants to be active, he wants to be playing, so it's been a challenge for him to really see the importance of writing.

If you can't read, you can't write.

And if you can't write, you can't think.

- [Derek] In 2019, Brunswick began to shift its approach about how to get students like Markus and Charlie to read and want to read.

- They didn't feel like they were meeting student needs, especially some of our more struggling readers and writers.

- [Derek] National reading assessments were telling a similar story.

Reading scores started falling across the country well before the pandemic, about 2013.

Some experts note the drop is coinciding with the end of No Child Left Behind accountability measures.

Others point to the rise in kids' use of cell phones and social media.

Literacy expert Alissa Reicherter sees it more simply.

- The earliest reading skills just weren't being taught as effectively as they needed to be.

- [Derek] In 2002, Maine was ranked second in the nation in terms of the literacy proficiency of our fourth graders.

By 2024, according to the same NAPE test, we'd fallen to the bottom 10.

Sure, lots of states have seen their scores decline, and any teacher will tell you standardized tests are just one limited measure of student achievement.

But still, it's fair to ask what happened and what are we doing about it?

In Brunswick, the answer was to look down at his pre-K classrooms, which had recently adopted Maine's new open source curriculum, Pre-K For ME.

It's based on the focus curriculum from Boston Public Schools, which has received kudos for both incorporating the best science on reading and for student achievement gains that don't fade with time.

- Classroom teachers were noticing, "Wow, these students really have some great skills coming into kindergarten.

What are you using?"

- [Derek] At the same time, Maine was expanding his Pre-K for Me into kindergarten and then first and second grades.

More Kate Furbish teachers piloted the curriculum and capitalized on free training from the Maine Department of Education, and the momentum grew.

- We learned through science how kids learn how to read, and I looked at what I was doing and I thought, okay, I though what I was doing was working, but I started to see these gaps that I had known that children had, but I didn't know how to fill them.

- What has been missing is really looking at early learners and thinking how their brain works and trying to figure out how they need explicit teaching and some foundational skills, and they need it tied to things that they're actually doing in their real life.

- [Derek] In the fall of 2024, hoping to expand and deepen their success, Principal Young and her faculty took another leap, adopting this new literacy curriculum school-wide.

The Brunswick version is called Together for ME.

- I was tentative about it at first because it's very different from what we had been doing.

I also knew that there was a lot of research that was saying that we needed to maybe go in another direction.

- [Derek] The National Literacy Spotlight has recently turned to Mississippi, where fourth grade test scores have bucked trends and skyrocketed to the top 10 in state rankings.

Well, guess what?

The work here in Brunswick is directly related to the so-called Mississippi Miracle.

- What else?

What's the most fun?

- [Derek] Both Mississippi's program and Maine's For ME curriculum are adapted from Boston's evidence-based focus curriculum.

Kate Furbish is now the only school to use the state-backed literacy approach in all its classrooms, all 40 of them.

Could this be the birthplace of a Maine miracle?

- Ready?

Do your best.

- [Derek] So what makes Kate Furbish distinct?

The first thing you may notice is the size of its student body.

Kate Furbish Elementary School is the largest pre-K to two school in the state, serving over 600 kids between the ages of four and eight.

That means that even the biggest, scariest kid in the school is way south of five feet tall.

- I think that that's helpful for kids because they don't get intimidated, they can have confidence wherever they're at.

- Every single thing we do is just really focused to those four to eight year olds, which is such an important growth area.

Every lesson that we teach, every bulletin board, every assembly, field trips, they're all really thinking about those young learners.

- [Derek] The next thing you'll notice is that students in every classroom experience similar routines and activities, and that reading and writing is happening in every class all the time.

Plus, every classroom in each grade level tackles the same themes, questions, and texts.

Most classrooms start with a morning meeting.

It's a time to connect about the day's plan and build community.

At Kate Furbish, it's also an opportunity to practice literacy skills.

Mrs.

Dwyer asks her first graders to stand up if their name has a word within it.

- How about you?

What's your small word?

- Hen.

- Hen.

Let's say good morning, hen.

- [Everyone] Good morning, Hen.

- How about you?

- Hat.

- Hat.

Good morning, Hat.

- [Derek] The class leader for the day gets to lead the class in the reading and decoding of the morning message.

Today, it's Jonah.

- [Everyone] Good morning vocabulary experts.

- [Derek] Becoming vocabulary experts is a top priority.

Students often study up to eight words a week.

The words are linked to the text and big question the class is studying.

- Here are our vocabulary words for this week.

We're going to start with four.

Ability, commitment, education, and something called equal rights.

- Dear.

- [Everyone] Astronomers.

- [Teacher] Let's clap that, please.

Astronomers.

Astronomers.

What does that mean, Damien?

- Astronomer means we'll do a really good job.

- So vocabulary really gives them freedom, and I've never dealt with vocabulary as deeply as I have in the past couple years with this For ME curriculum.

Okay, Damien, did you hear that?

Are you listening?

- Yes.

- Okay.

So astronomers mean... - Studying the sky.

- Yeah, a scientist that studies the sky.

That's a huge vocabulary word.

All right, let's read on.

- [Derek] Kate Furbish students are prompted to keep trying out their new words until they're a part of their repertoire.

Florence, a second grader, auditioned a new word when writing about wild oats, a favorite Brunswick eatery.

- Wild oats is a magnificent place to get food and drinks.

- Magnificent.

- Yes.

- What does magnificent mean?

- Like really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good.

- So it's like an eight reallys plus a good?

- Yes.

- Equals magnificent.

- Yes.

- That is an excellent definition.

I asked Markus to share a favorite word he learned recently.

After thinking hard, he says... - Empathy.

- Empathy.

Is that an important word?

What's empathy mean?

- It means like helping and caring for other people.

- Oh my goodness.

There's no other word you need to know if you know empathy.

That's the biggest one of all.

Any other big words come to mind for you?

- Exasperating.

- What?

Say that again.

- Exasperating.

- Exasperating.

What is that?

Is that you around bedtime?

- When kids learn a word like exasperating or empathy, it helps with their decoding and fluency.

It also empowers students, providing access to new facets of life, birthing new thoughts.

- By the way, you are all doing a fantastic job right now, listening to each other, raising your hand.

- [Derek] The week's vocabulary is typically tied to a challenging text that the whole class tackles together.

- The interconnectedness to this program is what I really see as kind of driving anything, everything that kind of excites the students.

Today we're going to look at a text written by some adults who are part of something called the United Nations.

Can you say that with me?

- [Everyone] United Nations.

- [Derek] You heard it.

These second graders are tackling a UN text.

It's the section in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights about children's rights.

- Why is the act of learning, especially in a school, important?

- [Derek] One change Brunswick teachers made to the state's curriculum was to weave in more Wabanaki texts.

- Did you figure out what this was all about?

What is this trying to tell us?

- [Derek] And to ensure students understand what they read, educators make sure students have frequent opportunities to talk about texts with their teachers and each other.

- You need lots and lots and lots of oral language to actually be able to have strong reading comprehension and classrooms that are actually too quiet are problematic.

- It's the building block of a lot of reading and writing, so what our teachers are saying to our students matter, and what our students are saying to our teachers is how they start to learn better how to read and write.

- [Derek] The biggest curricular shift in Brunswick was informed by the staff study of the science of reading in young brains, more phonics and an approach to phonics that is more purposeful and engaging.

- We have definitely made a move to really focus on those fundamental literacy skills, that explicit systematic approach to phonics.

So that's something we've adopted as a school and all classrooms are doing it.

- Phonics is such an important part that wasn't quite, I didn't quite grasp earlier on in my career.

- [Derek] Kate Furbish uses a popular phonics program out of Florida called UFLY.

But as always, Kate Furbish teachers customize the program to meet the needs of their particular students.

Jonah leads the class echo in Mrs.

Dwyer's class.

- CH spells ch.

- [Everyone] CH spells ch.

- CH spells ch.

- [Everyone] CH spells ch.

- CH spells ch.

- CH can spell ch.

There are three sounds for CH.

Wow.

- [Derek] While Jonah's leading class and filling in the blanks of the morning message uses the wrong word, mouth instead of month, a potentially embarrassing mistake.

- We learn so many different words last mouth.

Where can you look for the word month?

- Over there at the heart word.

- Can you find it?

- [Derek] So Jonah heads to the wall where he finds the class's ongoing list of heart words, words that don't follow the rules of phonics and need to be learned by heart.

- M-O-N-T-H.

- [Teacher] Everybody spell it.

- [Everyone] M-O-N-T-H.

- [Teacher] Excellent editing.

Keep going.

- [Derek] Mrs.

Dwyer knows Jonah's speech and reading tendencies well enough to understand why he might invert the U in the N. Later in class, she creates another opportunity for him to learn and triumph.

- O-U and O-W spell Ow.

- [Everyone] O-U and O-W spell Ow.

- I suspect that he'll never do that again.

- [Derek] Kate Furbish teachers know their students so well because of careful observation, but also because they frequently review the results of student assessments with their colleagues.

The assessment data, often from simple paper and pencil exercises, lets teachers know which students have mastered particular skills and who needs more help.

- Looking at your data, what are you noticing about grouping for your students?

- Really pleased with what's happening.

I think many of them are just where they need to be.

Some others are glitching, but this data is showing me exactly where I need to go.

- [Derek] Teachers often use the insights gleaned from these data meetings to inform how they use another pillar of their literacy approach, small group instruction.

Who's in what group is fluid depending on student need?

No more static stigmatizing reading groups with names like bluebirds, sparrows and eagles.

At Kate Furbish, every reader is, like the school mascot, a chickadee.

♪ Chickadee dee dee, chickadees are we ♪ ♪ We love our little Furbish family ♪ - [Derek] Small group instruction is for targeted intervention.

Who needs more strategy for reading fluency, which includes both speed and accuracy?

Who needs practice with diagraphs?

Ms.

Sciacca is working with Emerson on a strategy for improving his fluency called scooping up.

- Emerson, remember I want, when we're working on scooping up our phrases, right?

So if you get stuck on a hard word, work it out, but then go back and rephrase, okay?

- That was super interesting.

- See now you've done the hard work, so now go back and rephrase it.

- That was super interesting.

- Yeah, there you go.

- [Derek] The final pillars of Together For Me may be the most important, agency and play.

Kate Furbish students get lots of say over the books they read independently.

There's also structured play built into their days during studio time.

What do you like to do most in second grade class?

- Studios.

- We are ready to start studios for today, so I want you to be thinking about what you want to do as a learner.

- Students then get to choose from a range of activities that invite imaginative play, but are still woven into the class's current topics and literacy goals.

- If you're working on the Brunswick history, off you go.

- [Derek] Florence uses her studio time to create a play about the Poet Longfellow in the town library.

It's part of the grade's focus on Brunswick history.

- We're going to dress up as character.

- Okay, let's go.

- Okay.

- Play is a huge part of the hard work in our school.

When you're involved in intentional play the way we do it, we have students being curious.

We have students practicing self-regulation.

We have students practicing communication skills.

- And I think that there's a careful balance between making sure that you're delivering all the curriculum and hitting all the skills that kids need to remembering that you're working with little kids and they learn through play.

So giving them the time and the space that they need to try and fail and try again.

When you tell kids that part of their day is choosing how they're going to learn, it makes a huge difference for those kids who don't necessarily want to be at school and it can really, really change their ideas about what school is.

- [Derek] These first and second graders also have choice about what, how, and when they read at home.

Reading at home is not framed as an obligation, but as an opportunity.

- Share your adventure from last night with your reading.

- I read on the bus and I read with my mom last night.

- Make sure that the books go home at least twice a week, at least at this age.

Parents, I tell them to keep it as fun as they possibly can.

- [Derek] The books that go home are a combination of student choice and teacher recommendations.

It's all a lot different than what Henry's dad remembers of first grade.

- I don't recall having any take home materials that I was interested in whatsoever.

I also don't recall discussing my learning with my parents.

- [Derek] For new readers, the end result is that reading independently becomes a joyful habit.

- Every night, no matter what, I read.

- That's great.

For how long?

- Around an hour.

- And why do you do that?

- Because I like reading.

- [Derek] All right, this all looks and sounds kind of miraculous, but what's the hard evidence it's really working, that other Maine schools or maybe all Maine schools should follow the lead of Kate Furbish?

There's no statewide or national testing for first and second graders, thank goodness.

So how can we be sure?

Well, there is data.

Here's Mrs.

Dwyer on her class.

- Every single general ed child is on level and they pass their benchmark.

- [Derek] And compared to even last year, Principal Young reports a 10% increase in the percentage of second graders who ended the year with a reading fluency at or above grade level.

But testing data is only one indicator of progress.

Now that Kate Furbish has completed its second year of full school implementation, what are the educators observing and experiencing?

- I'm seeing a lot more excitement around reading and writing authentically than I have in the past.

- I've noticed more and more as how well they decode.

They're ready to do harder things.

- Kids are really understanding content that I felt like maybe it was going to be too much for them, but it's not.

- [Derek] Okay, but what do parents think?

- The commitment to learning seems exceptional.

- Back when I was in school, we were told what to do and you kind of shut your mouth and you did it.

It's so much more vibrant and so much more interactive.

- We've recently moved back to the area and one of the things that is keeping us in this town is this school.

- [Derek] All right, enough adults.

What about the kids?

Sure, they're learning, but are they learning enough?

We visited Kate Furbish once in the fall, and again, as the school year was wrapping up, we talked to the same students and listened to them read both times.

We wanted to see if we could get a more visceral understanding of just how much a student can grow as a reader and writer over the course of first and second grade.

When we met in June with Oliver, he was thrilled to witness his reading progress.

He also told us about his favorite writing prompt from the year.

- Why is Kate Furbish a good school?

Because I had a lot to write.

- [Derek] Markus's literacy growth was quickly apparent to me and Markus.

- But I've been practicing at my house and something that's a fact is that I can read 70, no, 87 words in a minute.

- [Derek] Can you spell your last name for me?

- C-A-Y-L-O-R.

- So what's your goal?

- To read a lot of chapter books.

- How are you doing on that?

- Really good.

I'm reading 200.

- What?

You've read 200 chapter books?

That's amazing.

- I've practiced and practiced and I've never given up.

- [Derek] We asked Charlie to read a section from the same book he read to us in October.

- "I'm great at solving mystery," said Katie Woo.

"I always know where my mom hides my birthday presents."

- [Derek] Then we showed Charlie a video of him reading the same passage last fall.

- Katie Woo.

- Woo.

I always knew where mom hides my birthday presents.

- What do you notice about what's different?

- That I read it way faster and more efficiently.

I made it more interesting with more characters acting it out.

Becoming a stronger reader makes you stronger, your brain stronger.

- [Derek] Next, we turn to Charlie's bigger challenge, his writing.

Mrs.

Sciacca recalls a critical conversation with Charlie midyear.

- I'm not sure what's going on because I know you can do it, but you're not able to do it, to put it down on paper.

And he got a little upset and he looked at me with big eyes and he said, "I just can't keep all my ideas straight and get them down on paper at the same time."

And for me, I was like, "Okay, now we've got something to work with."

- [Derek] Mrs.

Sciacca trusting relationship with Charlie opened the door.

They discovered that Charlie could write more readily when he dictated his thoughts to an iPad before writing.

Now, as his writing skills have strengthened, he's able to gather and sort his thought pre-writing using a graphic organizer, and to complete a composition like this.

- Vegetables and fruits have lots of vitamins and minerals.

- Here's what you wrote in the fall.

- It's kind of funny how I compare.

- Yeah.

Are you the same guy?

- No.

- What have you been doing over the last six months?

- Working really hard.

At the end of the year, my goal is to write big stories with all the lines filled up.

And that's what I did.

- That is what you did, my man.

Give it up for that.

Yes, that is awesome!

And now researchers are starting to see what Charlie, Markus, and their teachers already know.

Last spring, the University of Michigan published a study on Maine's Promising For Me curriculum.

- The good news is we don't have to make it a false dichotomy, right?

We can have rigor and we can have joy, and I think that's what this curriculum is doing.

Yes, there is no way around teaching kids solid phonological awareness and phonics skills, and you do have to attend to engagement and motivation because kids are going to learn a whole heck of a lot more if they want to be in school so that they feel from a really young age like their ideas matter.

- [Derek] And the even better news at Kate Furbish is that Together for ME is not just for students in Mrs Dwyer or Mr.

Funderburks classes.

It's for all children, and that amplifies the benefits for teachers and kids.

- The kids are getting the same background knowledge and having the same experiences with text that you can build on as you go.

They come to your classroom already knowing some of the structures that are going to be used.

- [Derek] And knowing those routines frees up spaces in kids' brains to focus more on phonics or equal rights.

- I think the fact that we're all doing the same curriculum really helps build collegiality at our school, so teachers are able to go into each other's classrooms and see what's happening.

They're able to, during their planning time, get together and talk about like, "What did you do for the text talk today?

Oh, I'm going to try that tomorrow."

- [Derek] Alyssa Reicheter has coached schools and teachers around the country.

She's clear on the value of Kate Furbish's all-in commitment to Together For Me.

- It's the thing.

It's the thing.

Cohesion matters a lot.

It's the difference between having a great player and having a great team.

So you can't just have a single great teacher, you need a great school.

- [Derek] As Brunswick has demonstrated, the fundamentals of building a great literacy team are not magic, but could reveal the path to Maine's own literacy miracle.

First, equip your educators with quality resources like classroom libraries and the For Me curriculum, and make sure that curriculum is aligned with research on how kids learn to read.

Second, ensure thorough training.

Kate Furbish teachers benefited from free trainings from the main DOE, as well as customize ongoing support from staff literacy coaches and outside experts.

- You also need to invest in coaching to support educators, right?

To meet them where they are, to listen to their voices too, and give them agency as they adopt something.

- [Derek] Lastly, provide ample time for teachers to try out and adapt what they're learning, and not all at once, but at a sustainable pace.

The Kate Furbish rollout happened over five years.

- It doesn't mean that classroom A does things exactly the same way as classroom B, but it's just that we all agree to speak some common languages and have certain structures or protocols in place, creating equity so that every child, not just the lucky ones who get that special teacher, are going to thrive.

- [Derek] Mrs.

Dwyer confirms this is no can teacher-proof curriculum.

Her autonomy and judgment are still supreme.

- I mean, I look at the content and I read the lessons and I decide with the children I have in front of me, how do I adapt it so that I can be most effective to them?

- People often ask teachers like, "How do you teach a kid how to read?"

And I think the real question is how do you create readers?

Because it's not just about decoding the word on the page, it's about reading for pleasure, reading to gain information.

It's about decoding and understanding what you're reading and then putting that all together.

- Stage magicians never tell their secrets because it ruins the fun.

The literacy magicians of Kate Furbish have openly shared that fun and caring and choice and play can be integrated with lots and lots of purposely constructed connected practice and skill development at school and at home.

They've shown that the best magicians work together as a team to figure out the right trick at the right time to help a learner become unstuck, to experience the magic themselves.

That's how you achieve the academic holy grail, rigor with joy, and create a classroom of kids, a school of kids, all yearning for their next opportunity to grow as readers and writers, as thinkers and people.

At Kate Furbish, learning to read and write is not magic, but it's even better.

- [Everyone] You have the right to a good quality education.

- [Derek] Thanks for watching "Learning from Maine."

If you've missed any of the stories from our first season or want to go deeper with bonus content, head to our YouTube page or our website at mainelovespublicschools.org.

Coming up on our next episode, we'll visit Pittsfield.

For one night a year, the whole community turns out to listen to hundreds of middle schoolers talk about their problems and solutions.

Thanks again for watching, and let's keep learning from Maine.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues)