Meridian’s elementary students grow reading skills thanks to new teaching approach

One Whatcom County elementary school is seeing growth in students’ reading skills after making some significant changes to its teaching approach.

Irene Reither Elementary in the Meridian School District saw a 129% median growth in student reading proficiency last year, the highest in several years, said Principal Tyler Dockins. The district also received recognition from the state Board of Education for growth for students in special education and students in one or more racial groups, one of just 16% of schools in Washington state to receive such recognition. 

The growth, Dockins thinks, is thanks to a new approach to teaching reading.

Dockins started as principal in 2022. That school year, he introduced supplemental curriculum with more focus on phonics and phonemic awareness, and a new instructional coaching program, where teachers receive feedback and discuss their teaching methods with a colleague. The curriculum and program were fully implemented in the 2023–24 school year.

Phonics is a method of teaching reading that correlates sounds with letters or groups of letters. It’s seen a resurgence after the 2022 podcast “Sold a Story,” which detailed the failed move from phonics toward “cueing,” a discredited practice that says beginning readers don’t need to sound out written words because they can rely on pictures and context to figure them out. 

Irene Reither’s new curriculum, from the University of Florida Literary Institute, doubles down on phonics. The previous curriculum, which is good for knowledge-building, lacked explicit instruction on phonics, said Holly Li, multilingual specialist and instructional coach.

“We were looking at our own data, and we were like, ‘Huh, kids aren’t reading like we thought they should be reading,’” Li said. “And then a lot of us did some digging, listened to some podcasts and were like, ‘we have to do something about this.’” 

Phonics lesson

On a recent school day, second-grade teacher Ariel Goo was leading her students through a phonics lesson. They were working on a new concept: suffixes. 

The students sat at their desks, eagerly watching Goo as she chanted vowel sounds, with accompanying hand motions. Students were instructed to write down the possible letter combinations that could make that vowel sound. 

After the lesson, Goo sat down with Li, where they discussed Goo’s lesson and reviewed a recent assignment from the students. There, they looked over common mistakes — several students had written “tall” as “toll” — and made a plan on how to revisit and emphasize that concept in class. 

Dockins said this kind of coaching leads to “better results and more effective practices.” It’s a method that started last year. Goo said she appreciates it as a “designated time and space” to better her instruction. 

Li, who was previously a classroom teacher, said being on your own “gets a little stale” after a while, and instructional coaching provides “new energy and enthusiasm” to teaching.

Li said reading instruction at Irene Reither focuses on “putting student outcomes first,” and reviewing the data to see if what they’re doing is working. 

Goo said teaching children to read takes “time and effort” and reflection on what students need. 

“From that time and effort is how I think you can make those changes and help those students really build strong, foundational reading skills and get to see that growth, which is really exciting to see and celebrate,” she said. 

Dockins said while the pandemic had negative impacts on student performance, it’s “water under the bridge now.” 

“We look at the data, we see what the needs are and then we address it,” he said. “We listen to kids, we see what they’re feeling or how they’re acting, and then we address it.”

Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at [email protected]; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.