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June 15, 2023
Greetings,
Welcome back to to the second edition of our parent newsletter! Thank you for your continued interest in public education in North Carolina.
As the 2022-23 school year winds to a close and we head into the ever-anticipated summer break, I wanted to highlight a topic that I'm very passionate about in this edition: literacy. Summer break is the perfect time to instill a joy of reading in our children and help them maintain the academic gains achieved during the school year.
Students who can’t read proficiently by the third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than proficient readers, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This means that reading proficiency is truly foundational to a student’s long-term success, regardlesss of the path they pursue.
As I'm sure you all witnessed during the pandemic, when students are not in the classroom for an extended period of time, there is bound to be some degree of learning loss, which is why you will often hear educators refer to the summertime months as the "summer slide." The summer slide is a phrase used to describe the decline in certain academic skills, like reading proficiency, that can occur during the months of summer when students are out of school.
In an effort to combat the summer slide, I've outlined some resources below, which include some reading and podcast materials to help you all gain a deeper understanding of literacy teaching methods and how impactful parent involvement can be in a student's education.
I hope that you and your family have a wonderful and restful summer vacation. May it be filled with pool trips, beach time, board games and ice cream!
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 Catherine Truitt
Superintendent, NC Department of Public Instruction
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Parents 2021: Going Beyond the Headlines
Responding to What Parents, Teachers & Principals Really Want
While headlines and media seem to sometimes pit parents and educators against one another, Parents 2021: Going Beyond the Headlines from bealearninghero.org presents a report that tells a more nuanced and hope filled story of how increased engagement demonstrates a desire for stronger family-school engagement.
As a preview, here are a few key insights:
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Parents want an accurate picture of their child’s achievement. Parents and educators alike prioritize having a clear picture of how a student is doing and desire to build trust between one another. Parents also value educators being both direct and truthful about their child’s performance – even if things aren’t going well.
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Despite greater involvement, parents still have an inflated view of their child's performance. Significant gaps remain between what parents think and teachers know about student performance. Even after a year of remote and hybrid learning, more than 9 in 10 parents (92%) think their child is at/above grade level, while only 44% of teachers believe their students are prepared for grade level work.
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The window of opportunity is now for meaningful family engagement. With increased engagement between families and schools, strong agreement on priorities for this school year, and funding available for recovery efforts, there are unprecedented opportunities for meaningful family engagement focused on teaching and learning.
Read the full report that surveyed K-12 parents, teachers and principals here. You can also watch a short video on the findings here.
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Below I've rounded up the top three literacy topics and resources that I think would be of importance and interest to parents.
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Sold a Story Podcast: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong
It is no secret that I am passionate about literacy and am a big believer in the Science of Reading, which is why I love the Sold a Story podcast mini-series and recommend giving it a listen. In this podcast, they dive into how and why so many, both within and outside of education, believe in a method of literacy instruction that has been proven not to work.
"There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended."
Learn more and listen to the podcast here.
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The Daily Podcast: The Fight Over Phonics
In this episode of The Daily, powered be The New York Times, hosts discuss the balanced literacy technique that Professor Lucy Calkins pioneered about 50 years ago, which de-emphasized the use of phonics to teach reading. This podcast does a great job of presenting the research behind both approaches to early literacy instruction and why Professor Calkins' methods do not lead to reading proficiency.
Listen here.
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Literacy at Home: Digital Children's Reading Initiative
In order to provide continuing support for North Carolina’s youngest readers, NCDPI's Office of Early Learning has developed and released “Literacy at Home.” This digital resource provides literacy activities at each grade level, pre-k through fifth grade. Families and communities may access this resource for activities that specifically target the literacy skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and oral language. When children grow in each of these foundational areas they are well on their way to becoming proficient readers.
To learn more about NCDPI's Office of Early Learning and early literacy, check out the Early Literacy page where you will find information on the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021 and the Science of Reading.
Find literacy resources you can use at home all summer long here.
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