In 2020, the Aldine Independent School District became the first district in Texas to adopt a high-quality, knowledge-based reading curriculum. It was a seismic change for teachers, who had been using a familiar balanced literacy program with skills-focused lessons and leveled readers for several years. But it was a necessary change for students — in 2018-19, just 30 percent of Aldine third graders were reading at or above grade level.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and its effect on academic achievement, we have made strides by implementing the Amplify CKLA curriculum. Today, teachers lead highly structured, thematic units that focus on the same content over a period of weeks. All students work with the same knowledge-rich, grade-level texts, whether they read them independently or with support. That gives every student the opportunity to build vocabulary and a base of common knowledge, which boosts reading comprehension and fosters inclusive communities of learning.
Our students have made rapid progress — within the first two years, 50 percent of third graders were reading at or above grade level. The percentage of third graders scoring “well below” benchmark dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent. These are heavy lifts in Aldine, where about 90 percent of students are economically disadvantaged and more than half are English language learners.