Eliazar, a fifth grader at Lewis & Clark Elementary, with his favorite book series: “Dog Man” graphic novels. Eliazar has learned how to speak, read and write in English over the past five years. He arrived at kindergarten in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic but has benefited from science-based reading and writing instruction and data-based interventions. He is now reading at grade level and is teaching his 5-year-old brother how to write his name. Photos by Tracey Goldner.

About six years ago, Stephanie Sparks noticed something. 

Her third, fourth and fifth graders were having trouble reading. 

Teachers were following the curriculum, and students were trying their best. 

It just didn’t add up. 

Around the same time, COVID-19 was spreading across the globe -- engulfing communities in fear and shuttering schools everywhere.

Stephanie Sparks is one of the catalyzing forces behind the systemic shift underway in the Astoria School District. After nearly two decades of using now-debunked methods, educators there are teaching students how to read using science-backed strategies. “All kids can learn to read,” Stephanie says.

Stephanie, who was then working as an early literacy coach in the Astoria School District, was working remotely several afternoons a week. Accustomed to dashing between classrooms, she used the extra time in front of the computer to start digging for answers.

She started reading about how the brain actually learns how to read and kept coming across the same phrase -- the science of reading. The concept refers to the reality that people don’t just automatically become literate but do so through a rigorous and prescriptive process. 

What she was reading didn’t square with what she had been taught in her teacher preparation program in the 1990s in California. It also didn’t match up with the curriculum her district was using. 

Megan Goin, an instructional coach at John Jacob Astor Elementary School, leads second grade students through a spelling and encoding lesson on words that use “ee” and “ea” patterns. Encoding on white boards helps students internalize the spelling pattern, meaning they’ll be more likely to remember it correctly next time. 

In 2015, the district had adopted a curriculum called Fountas and Pinnell from the well-regarded Heinemann Publishing Company. The curriculum, which teachers often refer to as whole language or balanced literacy, assumes children become readers without a lot of explicit instruction.

The district’s choice wasn’t unique at that time. Heinemann made $1.6 billion in sales during that decade, and American Public Media found the majority of the country’s largest districts had purchased products from that publisher during that time frame.

She and Megan Goin, then a special education teacher, were convinced their schools needed to change course. They started with Kate Gohr, the principal at John Jacob Astor Elementary School, where kindergarten through second graders attend.

Kate found their research and the accompanying presentation they had prepared for her compelling.

“Reading is really the most equitable part of education,” Kate says. “Ideally kids learn to love to read, but we have to teach them to learn to read first.”

Astoria Superintendent Craig Hoppes came to similar conclusions about the need to shift to a science-backed curriculum.

Stephanie says making changes like these takes buy-in from everyone in the district, especially the superintendent.

“It starts from the top,” she says.

With the support of their leaders, Stephanie and Megan began laying the groundwork for a curriculum shift.

But even with that backing, buying a new English language arts curriculum is daunting for any district, especially for a rural one emerging from a global pandemic.

They started off by writing their own small group curriculum based on a phonics program called Really Great Reading, a program that incorporates science of reading concepts. Then they rolled it out to general education and special education teachers to use.

Second graders practice “ee” and “ea” words as part of their weekly spelling lessons. Every day, students learn encoding and decoding skills, which helps them learn how to read and write words correctly. 

The process was cumbersome at first. Some teachers balked at changing methods after decades in the classroom. Others were relieved to find it was the curriculum at fault and not their own teaching. 

Word spread that change was afoot. 

Stephanie became the director of instructional support in 2022. Astoria also assigned a literacy coach at Lewis & Clark Elementary, a third through fifth grade school across Youngs Bay. 

The schools also used Title I funding to pay for two reading-focused teachers and four instructional assistants. 

Then in 2023, the Oregon legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek took a microscope to Oregon’s middling reading scores. The legislature allocated additional funding to help districts boost their performance. 

The Department of Education announced that every district in the state would be eligible for funding to improve early literacy. The state also required that every district submit the names of their curricula and assessment systems to ensure they met guidelines.   

With the $260,000 Astoria was awarded, the district added a literacy coach at the K-2 school, Astor Elementary, and bought a new curriculum -- Core Knowledge Language Arts -- and rolled it out during the 2024-25 school year. 

Charlet Robinson, the Title I teacher at Astor Elementary, jokes that they wanted to burn the old curriculum. But without having to resort to fire, the team did remove every trace of it from classrooms.

Stephanie and Megan are open about how difficult some of the changes have been. 

“We’ve been accused of killing a love of reading,” Stephanie says. But they press forward and remind educators who were taught using older, ineffective methods they are not at fault. 

“You were doing the best that you could with what you had at the time,” Megan reminds them. “You can’t blame yourself.” 

The new curriculum, which is based on the science of reading, draws students in with gripping scenes of ancient civilizations like those in Turkey and Mexico; medieval hierarchies like the serfs, nobles and clergy; the key innovations and inventions that helped humans take flight; the lifecycle of the frog; and cultures and histories of Native Americans.  

Eliazar is a fifth grader at Lewis & Clark Elementary who is now reading at grade level after receiving tier 2 reading instruction, which is reserved for a fifth of students who are not meeting reading milestones. 

As a third grader, his results on a routine assessment found he was falling behind his peers. The next week, he received a special invitation to come to the Hogwarts’ Reading Room. His parents also received an individualized letter. 

There, he found walls adorned with Harry Potter characters including Fawkes, the red phoenix, Albus Dumbledore, the wizard, and the magical Whomping Willow tree, all hand-painted by educators. 

Mkiah, a fifth grader, has learned how to read and write in just one and a half school years. She works with Marjo Hawkins, a literacy coach at Lewis & Clark Elementary school, on phonics-based spelling skills. A high-quality reading intervention like the one Astoria uses -- Phonics for Reading --  can accelerate a child’s reading growth. 

During these lessons, he learned how to sound out multi-syllabic words and parse complex sentences. He looks back fondly on his time spent there with teachers and instructional assistants trained specifically on building those foundational reading skills. 

He remembers using index card-sized whiteboards, called SyllaBoards, to break up big words and then sound them out. 

“That was really fun,” he says. “I still want to go.” 

Teachers there light up when they hear these sentiments because they have worked hard to remove that stigma from needing reading support. 

From left: Zoey, Williams and Anika are fourth graders at Lewis & Clark Elementary School. Anika benefited from reading support offered by the district’s new literacy system and is now reading and writing at grade level. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she advises younger students. 

In 2023, about the same time Astoria was shifting toward the science of reading, Northwest Regional Education Service District was standing up early literacy support for districts regionwide. 

Laurel Fischer, one of the early literacy coaches at NWRESD, remembers a whole crew of Astoria educators arriving in Hillsboro for the quarterly, daylong training sessions on the science of reading she and her team were leading. 

The training starts from the beginning, introducing neuroscience concepts in order to explain how a child’s brain actually learns how to read and then moves into how educators can apply the concepts to their own classroom practices.  

That winter, Astoria invited NWRESD to come present on literacy to every educator in the district. The morning session included a viewing of the documentary, “The Right to Read.” 

Educators then read one of the seminal documents of the science of reading movement: “Science of Reading: A Defining Guide,” created by The Reading League. The 40-page document outlines the basic components of strong literacy instruction, including that children have to develop multiple skills simultaneously in order to become proficient readers.   

Laurel Fischer, a professional learning coach at NWRESD, demonstrates how to conduct a vowel-intensive exercise in a small group. The activity helps students learn how to identify vowel sounds. Laurel helps 20 school districts, including Astoria, embark on the slow and often challenging work of changing their literacy practices. “Getting more kids reading proficiently is not going to be a quick fix,” Laurel says. “This is not easy or fast work, but we can see incremental gains starting to take hold.”

The afternoon was reserved specifically for elementary teachers. There, they learned ways to make their teaching more explicit -- meaning each step is broken out, explained and reviewed. 

They also covered the importance of using specific and consistent routines like inviting students to practice in pairs, write down what they think or spell out words in unison. 

They also encouraged teachers to make learning more interactive. For example, a gallery walk, where students move around the room and leave comments for peers on large posters, affords kids the chance to move around while practicing their reading, writing and critical thinking skills. 

Stephanie says many of the teachers told her these sessions were among the best they’ve ever had. 

“It’s practical,” she says. 

The partnership took off that spring when Astoria decided to join the Oregon Response to Instruction and Intervention (ORTII) initiative. The project, which is funded by the Department of Education, had been operated by the Tigard-Tualatin School District for 17 years and shifted over to NWRESD the previous year. 

Districts must have relatively low literacy scores to qualify. At the time, just about a third of Astoria’s students were considered proficient or highly proficient in reading based on a statewide assessment called Smarter Balanced. 

With the additional support from the ORTII and early literacy support teams, Astoria gained new momentum in their yearslong journey of changing the way students learn to read. 

Laurel and Carrie Cowan, a professional learning coach on the ORTII team, led the district’s newly formed literacy team through a cyclical process of setting goals, collecting data and evaluating progress. 

But the group’s first order of business: setting a vision for their work. For Kate Gohr, that part was easy. 

Erin is a fifth grader at Lewis & Clark Elementary School in Astoria. She is reading at a ninth grade reading level and loves fantasy novels. She just finished the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” book series. Astoria’s reading curriculum supports students at every level, including Erin, who is reading more advanced books than her peers. 

“Without literacy you don’t have much,” she says. 

Megan agrees. “It’s non-negotiable,” she says. 

The team settled on the following: All students can learn to read and write given high-quality instruction.

During those first few meetings, they outlined the essential skills students would learn and what methods teachers would use. 

Cold calls -- where students raise their hands and wait to be called on -- are out. Group participation -- where everyone responds to a prompt -- is in. 

The group also learned how to think about and collect data differently. Laurel and Carrie shared examples of high-quality tracking systems, and the team created spreadsheets that would work for them. They also adopted a rubric they would use to track the district’s progress in establishing a multi-tiered system of support in literacy, meaning teachers are assessing students regularly to make sure they are progressing as expected. 

Teachers now regularly receive individualized updates from the literacy team and know exactly how their students are doing. 

In just a few years, there are many visible signs of the changes that have been made. It’s not unusual to see literacy coaches teaching lessons so teachers can learn new skills or for coaches to count the number of times students get to speak or engage meaningfully with what they are learning. 

Anita Archer, a leading science of reading researcher, has found the more opportunities a student has to sound out, spell out, write or read during a lesson, the more they learn. 

Gone are the days of a child hiding in the back dodging the teacher. Children are regularly asked to change seats to improve their engagement, use whiteboards to write words and read in unison. 

Laurel and Carrie are still heavily involved in these literacy team meetings, sifting through assessment data, delivering tailored professional learning based on what the teachers need and advising on how to integrate the new curriculum. 

But every year, Astoria educators have become more self-reliant. For the first time, they led their own core review meeting with Laurel and Carrie advising. 

That’s the meeting where everyone looks at how each incoming class is faring. Astoria uses an assessment called the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) that is essentially many small tests that can quickly determine which literacy skills a student shows proficiency in.  

The team remembers crying when they saw the results of a recent assessment. 

“I teared up,” Charlet says. 

Megan says they frequently cry over data, but recently, they have been crying happy tears, which is a change for them, she says.

There are just over 110 first graders in the Astoria School District. After the school switched to a science-based literacy curriculum, first grade proficiency in several areas such as nonsense word fluency, the ability to sound out letters and non-real word combinations, shot up. 

This fall is the first year they can compare students who learned with the new curriculum vs. those who didn’t. What they saw shocked them. 

This year’s first graders, who had learned with the new curriculum as kindergarteners, scored 17 percentage points higher than the first graders who hadn’t on a nonsense word fluency assessment. 

That’s a difference of about 18 students who can correctly sound out letters and a consonant-vowel-consonant combination at the beginning of the year. 

Those numbers have been powerful for everyone involved, Charlet says. 

“We have amazing humans making choices to teach kids,” she says of the teachers she works with.

She reflects back that at first the shifts started small. 

“When they trust you, then they start making bigger shifts,” she says. “Then the numbers come in.” 

That’s when you know it’s working.