Anne Arundel County Public Schools’ first year using an evidence-based curriculum to teach reading has been embraced by students and teachers despite a few shortcomings, which include the rigid structure and the challenge it poses for students who are transitioning into the curriculum later that kindergarten.

Last year, the Board of Education approved a $19.5 million six-year contract to use the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts, a curriculum based on the science of reading.

The district was catching up with what literacy experts have known for decades — that reading was being taught ineffectively.

The science of reading is not a single curriculum but rather a broad term referring to all curricula that use evidence-based methods to teach reading. It is based on five components: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Previously, American reading education was dominated by the “whole language method,” which taught reading primarily by immersing students in texts and assumed students picked up language skills through real-life applications.

With Amplify, teachers spend part of the reading instruction teaching phonics— the letters and sounds that were missing from language instruction— and the other part teaching reading comprehension, vocabulary and world knowledge. EdReports, an independent nonprofit that evaluates educational materials, determined Amplify met expectations across all their criteria, which several other curricula that claim to be based in the science of reading do not.

That created generations of students who could decode or spell well, said Shelly Bentley, a professor in Anne Arundel Community College’s Teacher Education and Child Care Institute who has more than 34 years of experience in education.

“We’ve known since 2000 what are the basic components of teaching reading in order for a young child to put this magic together in the reading process and learn how to read,” Bentley said. “This research now is much deeper in understanding how a brain processes language in order to comprehend how they use word recognition skills and how those are all interconnected in order for someone to learn how to read.”

Currently, 67% of Maryland’s fourth- and eighth-grade students are not proficient readers, according to the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program. In Anne Arundel, the percentage is slightly stronger—46% of students are not proficient readers.

Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright mandated that districts transition to the science of reading by June 2024.

When Wright came to Maryland, she was known for leading Mississippi’s adoption of the science of reading as that state’s superintendent of schools from 2013 to 2022. In 2013, Mississippi ranked 49th in the nation for fourth-grade reading proficiency.

By 2019, it ranked 21st. As of July 2023, 32 states and the District of Columbia were in the process of switching to a science of reading approach. In Maryland, 22 out of 24 districts had transitioned to the science of reading curricula by the time Anne Arundel did.

Deanna Edmunds, a second-grade teacher at Glendale Elementary, is in her sixth year teaching in the county.

Before Amplify, Anne Arundel used a hodgepodge of ways to teach elementary school reading.

“We were reinventing the wheel for every single lesson for every single subject all the time, so you had to put so much work into just making all of those things workable for you,” said Edmunds.

Compared to the district’s old approach to teaching reading, Edmunds said Amplify is “1,000%” better.

It’s difficult to assess the impact of the new curriculum in its first year.

Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, also called DIBELS, is a screening and progress monitoring tool involving multiple tests and built into Amplify. Comparing DIBELS composite scores from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year, kindergarten students’ scores grew by 9%. However, second-grade students remained the same, and first- and third-grade students dropped 2%.

Anecdotally, teachers report students seeming more engaged and showing strong understanding.

“We’ve had a lot of learned helplessness in our building. In the past, students would automatically put their hand up and ask for help before they even attempted. And now we’re seeing students produce quality work,” said Cheryl Cox, principal of Mills-Parole Elementary. “Engagement is on the rise.”

Cox said Amplify has been life-changing for many of her students because of its emphasis on building knowledge.

“The kids, they love it. They get excited to know what the next unit is going to be,” Cindy Berning, a fifth-grade teacher at Pasadena Elementary School, said. “It’s challenging, but they’re still getting excited about it.”

At a workshop on Tuesday, the Board of Education heard from students about their favorite units, ranging from Don Quixote to the Ancient Mayans, both subjects students typically would not encounter until middle school or high school.

“The students are really engaging with it,” Edmunds said. “When we first saw that we were going to be teaching westward expansion to second graders, even we were like, well, ‘How much do I know?’ But then you listen to the students in the comprehension part of the lesson … and they really are understanding it.”

Amplify is structured with scripts, lesson plans and prepared material that can sometimes seem formulaic.

“I think, early on, we kind of felt like it was a little bit robotic, and I think ultimately professional development then became more tailored to say, ‘Listen, yes, you have this script, and we want to follow the script. … We still want you to have your style and how you pedagogically deliver instruction and make it come alive,” Bedell said Tuesday.

Because it’s the first year, classrooms beyond kindergarten are at a disadvantage because they are not building on previous years in the curriculum. This issue has been challenging, educators say.

“If they’re missing like skills from first grade, we’re supposed to take them back to that part of the curriculum and then build them back up to second grade,” said Edmunds. “I think that’s what needs to happen for this to be really effective, because I’ve heard so many people having issues with the skills part of the curriculum just going too fast for students who are below grade level right now.”

The focus moving forward for improving elementary reading education includes investing in professional development to expand educators’ knowledge and skills of the science of reading, district officials said Tuesday. The district also recently began evaluating new programs for middle schools.

Have a news tip? Contact Bridget Byrne at bbyrne@baltsun.com or 443-690-7205