District Committed to Making Better Readers James Olsen, left, and Bryant Reid read to each other during a class assignment at Levi Bemis Elementary School

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Low test scores show Rialto students are struggling with reading, but district officials hope to change that by aligning the curriculum with state standards and providing additional training for teachers.

An audit of educational effectiveness shows that the Rialto Unified School District needs to explore various methodologies to improve the teaching of reading.

The audit used test scores for reading during the 1996-97 and 1997-98 school years for every grade level.

Rialto students scored below the national standards in both years and below the effectiveness level, which was set by auditors at 55 percent. In Rialto, students scored between the 19th and 38th percentile in 1996-97 and between the 8th and 33rd percentile in 1997-98.

Mick Brown, assistant superintendent for instruction, said everyone in the district is committed to improving reading scores in all grade levels.

"Our main effort is toward a balanced comprehensive reading program," he said. "We know we've got a ways to go, but we want to be at that effectiveness level."

In January, the district adopted the revised state reading standard. Now, the task at hand is aligning the reading curriculinn with the state standards, he said.

The standards give a breakdown of what should be taught to students in each grade. Students are then tested on that information on the Stanford 9 exam, which is administered each spring to every California student.

"We need to look and see if there are holes between what the curriculum is and the expectations set forth in the state standards," Brown said.

One way of aligning the district curriculum with state standards is by reviewing the materials used during instruction, he said.

If teachers find that students are not learning from the materials currently in use, then supplemental materials will be provided to assist students in learning.

"We need to get a sense of whether students are understanding what we are doing," Brown said. "In terms of whether their teaching is being translated into student learning."

To better help teachers assess student learning, the district applied for two state grants for training teachers in reading instruction.

One $30,000 grant is for the training of primary teachers, who teach kindergarten through third grade. The other $275,000 grant will train teachers who teach fourth through 12th grade.

Teachers will be trained in reading instruction during afterschool workshops or on Saturdays. It will provide teachers with reading instructional strategies such as increasing the emphasis on phonics, or sounding out words.

For some teachers, the training will be a follow-up to previous sessions they have had, but with about 100 new teachers in the district this year the training will provide insight into how they teach reading, Brown said.

Teachers already are improving some of their methods for teaching reading.

The district is now stressing the importance of using criterion reference tests in the classroom which tests students after a short amount of information is presented, rather than testing them after presenting weeks worth of information. This allows for teachers to immediately assess whether the student learned the material presented before moving to another concept.

Katrina Williams, a third grade teacher at Bemis Elementary School, said testing is a central part of her instruction.

"We do have tests that we use to see how the students are doing," she said. "It helps us to see what they've learned."

Using criterion reference tests also helps students practice for the Stanford 9 test, which covers the entire year's curriculum, Williams said.

Although district officials are hopeful student test scores in reading will improve in upcoming years, one group of students might still have some difficulty.

According to the audit, English-language learners scored significantly below non-English learners on the Stanford 9 test.

Dottie Spence, director of special programs, said that should be expected.

"You would expect their grades to be lower because you can't learn to read in a language you don't understand," she said. "They didn't understand one word of what they were reading."

The state mandates that all students, regardless of their native language, be tested in English.

Spence said students will have to master the English language before reading test scores will improve.

"We have no idea what to anticipate for them on the test," she said. "Once they've acquired some English we can start improving scores."

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