Cahokia school's student reading skills show dramatic improvement

Belleville News-Democrat

February 14, 2008

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A representative from the U.S. Department of Education toured Elizabeth Morris Elementary School in Cahokia on Wednesday to see firsthand how it pulled off one of the more dramatic turnarounds in the country.

Kristine Cohn, representative of the department's Midwest regional office, said the school's state test scores in reading have taken off since the federal Reading First program was put in place five years ago.

'Reading is so important because when you can read well, everything else falls into place,' Cohn said. 'You need to know how to read to learn about science and history, too.'

You even need to know how to read to do math, Cohn proved, when a curious student asked her how old she was and she told her the answer in the form of a word problem.

School Principal Nicole Sanderson said 51 percent of Elizabeth Morris third graders met or exceeded expectations on state tests during the 2003-04 school year. By the 2006-07 school year, 84 percent of students met or exceeded state expectations.

Cahokia School District 187 Response to Intervention Coordinator Gholdy Muhammad said the Reading First program calls for schools to closely monitor students' reading progress. If the kids fall behind, they get extra help to make sure they keep pace with their class.

Muhammad said students will be pulled out of other classes for 20 minutes several times a week to sharpen their reading skills. One of the ways they do that is by practicing with Lexia Learning software, which contains a variety of games that teach spelling, phonics and word association.

'This is on top of their normal classes,' Muhammad said. 'The idea is that they can stay with the group instead of falling behind or being put into special education classes.'

In addition to her tour of the Cahokia school, Cohn met Wednesday morning with students at Union School in Belleville to learn about its Belleville Literacy and Strategic Learning Program. On Tuesday, she toured Scott Elementary School on Scott Air Force Base to read with younger students.

Contact reporter Scott Wuerz at swuerz@bnd.com or 239-2626.

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