Sacramento County Office of Education aims to improve literacy rates among area students
by Jacob Peterson
With more than 55 percent of its students falling behind in English Language Arts (ELA) performance standards, the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) has formed the Sacramento County READS Initiative to help improve literacy rates.
The initiative began in the fall of 2023 and aims to create a collaborative environment that encourages and aids students in learning to read while making use of scientifically backed methods. Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David W. Gordon stresses the importance of addressing the issue of low literacy rates and its potential impact.
“Literacy is foundational to young people learning, and right now only 45 percent of our students meet grade level standards in English Language Arts, and that’s just not acceptable,” Gordon says. “We have to treat literacy and the deficiency in literacy as an emergency because it really does stand in the way of a child’s future.”
“We believe that literacy is a civil right and it is the gatekeeper to everything that’s going to happen in your life.”
Becky Sullivan, Director of K-12 English Language Arts, Sacramento County Office of Education.
The initiative refers to its science-backed method—which is based on decades of research and instruction—as “the science of reading.” Gordon says this method is a foundational part of the initiative and explains how it aids school districts in Sacramento County.
“The science of reading is what’s grounding our initiative,” he says. “That means explicit instruction in phonics, vocabulary and comprehension, not guesswork.”
Using these methods, the initiative advises school boards where they can improve on current instruction and provides them with training opportunities to better aid students. Gordon stresses that SCOE does not dictate what the school districts can and can not do.
“I am a former district superintendent, and I know how hard my colleagues in the districts are working to improve literacy skills,” Gordon says. “What we’re trying to do at SCOE is work with our districts and their boards to offer them high quality training cues as to how to work to improve their students’ performance.”
It takes a village
The Sacramento County READS initiative isn’t limited to just the classroom, and emphasizes the importance of family engagement and community partnerships. Becky Sullivan, SCOE director of K-12 ELA, says these collaborative elements are a vital part to reaching the goal of improved literacy rates.
“Everybody needs to be working together in that system, moving toward a common goal,” Sullivan says. “Teaching and learning expands from the classroom all the way to the district office and then it branches out into the family and community space as well, so they’re all really interconnected.”
Family engagement focuses on creating an environment that supports literacy at home as well as in the classroom. Sullivan says it’s about forming a partnership with parents to help students in tandem with scholastic efforts.
“Teaching a kid to read is the objective of the classroom teacher and the school’s responsibility,” Sullivan says. “But it certainly can be supported by what’s happening at home.”
Community partnerships also form an important pillar of the initiative, helping Sacramento County READS to foster an environment supportive of reading outside of the classroom. Some major partners include the Sacramento Literacy Foundation, local libraries and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
“We have a new program with the Dolly Parton Foundation where we will be delivering books for our most needy families,” Gordon says. “The books will come to them with some suggestions about how to use them with their children.”
Gordon says that the program, directed at children up to five years old, is a big part of engendering an early interest in reading. He notes simply reading to children when they are very young can make an enormous difference in early literacy rates.
In addition to making sure children are prepared with good literacy practices as they become students, the initiative also focuses on making sure students of all grades are able to catch up to their appropriate level. Both Sullivan and Gordon acknowledge that the period of remote learning from the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to many students falling behind and the overall low literacy rates.
“If you think about third graders right now, they were in kindergarten during distance learning,” Sullivan says. “Those are the critical years, so now you are in an intervention situation because you have to fill the missing gaps in order to keep moving forward.”
As these students get older, engaging them can also become more difficult due to the increasing difficulty of the content and a sense of embarrassment. Despite these difficulties, Sullivan and Gordon acknowledge that the effort is needed, as increasing literacy rates isn’t just about academics, but opening doors to a better future. The words behind the READS acronym—Rights, Equity, Access, Diversity and Success—emphasize this idea.
“We believe that literacy is a civil right and it is the gatekeeper to everything that’s going to happen in your life,” Sullivan says. “So this initiative is one way we are bringing that to the forefront of everybody’s attention.”
To learn more about the Sacramento County READS Initiative, visit scoe.net/divisions/ed_services/sacramentocountyreads/.
