NSU Horizons Fall 2006

F or every child, the obstacles are different, but our goal of providing a quality education is the same. Whether they are growing up in broken homes, confronted with a new language, struggling to overcome developmental disabilities, or burdened with taking care of their own physiological needs, all children must come to understand basic academic concepts if they are to become productive adults. Ralph E. “Gene” Cash, Ph.D., and his colleague at the Center for Psychological Studies, Sarah Valley-Gray, Psy.D., are studying the youngest learners on NSU’s main campus. Working with the experts at the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Cash and Valley-Gray—both pro- fessors in the Center for Psychological Studies—are hoping to establish a clear connection between the widely-used Ladders to Literacy preschool curriculum and the skills a child needs to become fully literate. Their study, “Metalinguistic Awareness Skills in Preschoolers: Implications for Emergent Literacy,” will add to a body of research examining how children learn and determining whether current methods adequately meet their needs. For many children with reading disabilities, assessment comes only after considerable failure and frustration. Furthermore, children who can’t read by third grade are unlikely to catch up to their peers. “It could help us identify much earlier the kids at risk for reading problems,” Cash said of the study. “The next phase of our research would be an attempt to intervene—find out whether adding specific training of early literacy skills to the prekindergarten curriculum can better predict academic success later on.” The literacy project, funded through the President’s Research and Development Grant Program, entered its third year with the start of the 2006–2007 academic calendar. It is also one in a series of ongoing studies at NSU that seeks to determine the best approaches to helping children succeed academically, a critically important task in a state that exceeds all others with its high school drop-out rates. School Accountability Over the course of a decade, the challenges school teachers face daily in reaching their pupils have increasingly been examined through the legislative and public micros- cope. In 1996, the Florida Board of Education adopted a new curriculum framework that became the basis for authorization of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). In the second year of the accountability program, 71 critically low schools were identified as not meeting the student achievement criteria, according to state records. Those rules were revised in 1999 to include the A+ Plan for Education—increased standards of accountability for students, schools, and educators. That year (the first year schools were graded on overall performance), 78 schools were identified as F schools for failing to meet requirements. President George W. Bush’s 2001 No Child Left Behind measure established a second layer of accountability, creating a ladder of penalties for schools that fail to meet standards, including dramatic restructuring. School districts throughout the country have spent considerable resources examining methods for teaching children from kindergarten through grade 12. Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed into law a measure initiating voluntary prekindergarten: state subsidized preschool for all children ages three to five years old. There have been some measurable improvements. Earlier this year, published reports indicated that reading proficiency among third-graders in Florida, for example, had moved from 67 percent to 75 percent. Math scores also improved among third graders, with proficiency rates moving from 68 to 72 percent. Additionally, more than a third of the state’s school districts received an A this year; not a single district received a D or F. But challenges remain. Most notably, Florida’s public high school graduation rate remains one of the nation’s lowest— 47th among 50 states—according to reports. To reverse this trend, educators throughout the state are seeking innovative approaches to teaching. “Most of our teaching so far has been focused on procedural learning,” said Hui Fang Huang “Angie” Su, Ed.D., a preeminent mathematics scholar and teacher. “The focus now is being placed on conceptual learning, so that stu- dents understand the concepts and know how to apply them.” Project A+ Su is a Professor of Mathematics Education in the Fischler School of Education and Human Services and formerly the K–12 Mathematics Specialist in the division of Academic Programs for the Palm Beach County School District. Nearly two decades ago, Su developed Project M.I.N.D. (Math Is Not Difficult) to help academically at-risk elemen- tary students improve their ability to solve math problems. horizons 21 NSU educators are seeking to determine the best approaches to helping children succeed academically, a critical task in a state with one of the nation’s highest high school drop-out rates. By Gariot P. Louima