As the Literacy Collaborative makes its way into the Hamilton City School District, teachers like Megan Wagonfield voluntarily take on additional roles as coaches to help guide the process along. Wagonfield is a second grade teacher at Brookwood Elementary for half her day, and the other half is spent using her training to help coach other teachers in integrating the framework of the Literacy Collaborative.
Wagonfield, a Hamilton transplant originally from Trenton, always knew she wanted to teach.
“I’ve been drawn to kids my whole life so it was a natural fit when I went to college at Miami University,” said Wagonfield. “I never wanted to do anything else; I was born and raised to be a teacher.”
She originally began teaching first grade at Lincoln Elementary. When Lincoln closed, she was reassigned and has been calling Brookwood home ever since.
At first glance, there may not appear to be a large difference between first and second grade. Since the implementation of the reading assessment exams, things have changed. The reading assessment exams are used to determine whether or not the children have reached the appropriate learning levels to move on to the fourth grade. If students do not pass, they can be held back.
“We want to make sure they’re reading,” Wagonfield explained. “We don’t want these kids to fall through the gaps just because we want to keep pushing them along. There has to be some sort of benchmark to measure where these kids are at.”
Becoming a Literacy Collaborative coach wasn’t easy. Wagonfield has spent a total of 280 hours over the last year training, including four full weeks at Ohio State University. After that, she completed full-day classes biweekly online and slowly integrated parts of the literacy collaborative framework into her classroom to be sure she had a proper understanding of the methods used.
“One of the elements of the literacy collaborative framework is called guided reading,” said Wagonfield.
She uses this element to evaluate the reading level of each student and then places them in a group with other students on that same reading level. This allows Wagonfield to cater directly to each reading level, leaving no child behind.
Although common practice is to have the entire class read the same book, Wagonfield believes that one book does not appeal to all reading levels equally. A book that challenges a higher reading level may discourage a student with a lower reading level, having an adverse effect on reading entirely. A book that might challenge a student with a lower reading level may not nurture or challenge the reading level of a student with a higher reading level.
“Really, you’re only hitting that middle group and that’s not going to grow the strugglers or stretch the ones that need enrichment,” Wagonfield said of single-book classrooms. “They don’t approach the same book in the same way.”
Guided reading is just one of the ways in which schools are shifting to focus more on the student as an individual.
Being a Literacy Collaborative coach and a teacher doesn’t come without its own set of challenges. To address these, Wagonfield makes time to sit down and touch base with her students, a habit she finds greatly enhances her connection with and ability to help her students do their best learning.
“You have to do those check-ins to make sure that those kids aren’t falling so far behind that they’re not able to catch up,” said Wagonfield. “I’m constantly aware of where my kids are at.”
As the Literacy Collaborative makes its way into classrooms across the district, Wagonfield feels its important for parents to know just how big their part really is.
“Learning is forever, so we want to encourage growth and trying,” said Wagonfield. “Mistakes are going to happen, but we need to encourage the effort so they can get where they need to be.”
While test scores and reading levels are very important, at the end of the day, Wagonfield believes that her true goal is to help her students believe in themselves.
“Did they achieve something in my classroom that made them believe that they can achieve more?” asked Wagonfield. “If they walk out of my classroom believing they can be whomever they want, I’ve done my job.”
Wagonfield is looking forward to seeing the impact the literacy collaborative will have on students in the years to come.