South Carolina Reading Initiative
The literacy scores of children in South Carolina have been among the lowest in the nation. The future for these children, if left unchanged, is grim. Statistics gathered by South Carolina's Success by Six organization (2002) predicted that of the 54,500 children who enter first grade in South Carolina in a given year, 30% will not graduate from high school, 85% will receive public assistance and 65% will spend time in confinement. Because literacy makes possible a different future, in the fall of 1999, the state of South Carolina made a long term, systematic commitment to improving the literacy skills and strategies of students in grades K-5. To do so, they created The South Carolina Reading Initiative (SCRI), a school-based staff development program.
SCRI teachers and administrators meet in bi-monthly study groups in participating schools across the state. Each study group is led by a literacy coach who leads inquiries into reading research and best practices in literacy education. Each session allows teachers to discuss related issues and any questions that have arisen in their classrooms. Literacy Coaches then spend four days a week in schools helping teachers make connections between what they are learning in their study groups and in their classrooms. University faculty and Regional Coaches provide support for Literacy Coaches by visiting them in the field and offering 9 hours of graduate credit each year. This brings the coaches to Columbia for three weeks in the summer and for two days each month during the academic year.
There are currently several different reading initiatives that have grown from the first endeavor initiated in the summer of 2000 (Phase 1). The funding base for these initiatives began with monies provided by the South Carolina's State Legislature, also known as the Governor's Reading Initiative. Due to the success of the first initiative, federal monies were garnered for South Carolina Reads and for South Carolina Reading First. To date, 6000 South Carolina educators have participated in SCRI initiatives. And currently the initiatives are impacting over 80,000 children per year.
Teachers, principals and superintendents across the state have embraced SCRI and are strong advocates for it. As one veteran teacher explained, “After teaching for 28 years, I finally know what it is I need to know in order to help children learn to read.”
Researchers at the University of South Carolina have studied SCRI. The preliminary findings suggest that teacher's beliefs and practices become more consistent with state standards and research based practices, and children in SCRI classrooms benefit from this expertise by becoming more strategic readers.
What is needed at this point? First, the research on SCRI has led to improvements in the design and implementation of the reading initiatives. Funding is needed so that we can continue to improve SCRI and better serve teachers and children in the state. Second, funds are needed to produce video tapes of South Carolina teachers that allow teachers to not just read about best practices but see them played out with SC children. Third, we have learned that schools not only need a literacy coach, but also need interventionists to support the literacy growth of children at greatest risk of failure. A Literacy Intervention Center at the University of South Carolina would provide a vehicle for children with special needs to receive specialized help, and provide professional development for interventionists in the state.