A new curriculum for reading and math started in Mexico Public Schools in the last two years, with a new reading curriculum starting last year and a math curriculum launching this year. 

District officials said they want to improve student learning with the new curricula, which can lead to improved student testing outcomes, and overall want to see great success for students. 

A few weeks ago, Amanda Warmbrodt, a fifth grade teacher in her third year at Eugene Field Elementary, and Leslie Curtis, a third grade teacher in her fifth year at Hawthorne Elementary, spoke about their experiences with the new curricula. 

Both teachers are on the district elementary math team, which started last year as officials researched new curriculum. In their discussion with the Ledger, they were joined by Wendy Lentz, district elementary math instruction coach, who “teaches the teachers how to teach math,” said Julie Lower-Welch, assistant superintendent, who also was in the interview. Lentz is in her first year in the position and is in her 20th year in education. 

Lower-Welch said it’s a “lot to take on” with two new curricula in the last two school years, but she said teachers requested it. The district had not looked at new math curriculum in 14 years, she said.

“What my perception has been is that teachers didn’t feel that the old curriculum met their needs -  (students’) learning needs, the learning styles of the kids,” Lower-Welch said. “It didn’t meet the learning standards that we have set.”

A new direction

With math, Curtis said the old curriculum wasn’t covering all the learning styles teachers see.

“We just have so many learning styles,” she said. “Mostly, it was the teachers talking and the students doing most of the listening, so we needed a change in that area. Teachers were requesting it. I think we just had been doing it for a while, and we weren’t getting the progress we wanted, so we just needed a fresh start.”

Warmbrodt said she likes the new math curriculum so far because there are so many strategies that students are given and the tools to solve problems. Math doesn’t necessarily have to be solved one strategic way, as there are multiple ways to learn it.

“And I think I’ve seen so much growth in kids that do struggle to persevere in it,” she said.

Lower-Welch said the previous curriculum, Everyday Math, didn’t strive for mastery of the learning objectives, that the new curriculum focuses on skills, working toward mastery and then moving on to the next standards that build upon those skills.

Targeting teachers for support

Lentz said there are teachers who are coming into education now who do not have much teaching experience or training, so district officials wanted to find something that was supportive of them and give them strategies to help students.

A month into the school year, Curtis said she had seen results, and students who struggle are showing they can accomplish harder objectives. If teachers can build their confidence, they can build their knowledge. 

Lentz said the district officials’ goal for students in kindergarten through eighth is getting students ready for algebra. Foundations must be set.

“If they don't have the foundational pieces that they need, then their learning is going to kind of stop,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to even access math higher than that. So that’s kind of our job in elementary (teaching) is to help prepare them so they can access higher levels of math.”

Educators  said the curriculum also provides real-world connections, and it also gives a vertical cohesiveness from one grade to the next and uses a lot of the same strategies.

The science of reading

With the new reading curriculum, called 95 Phonics Core Program, Lower-Welch said there was a “much quicker transition," as she said the district did not take a full year to research and pilot a program, but there was a pilot in summer school. 

“We had teachers in the district who had taught this program in other districts and had seen great results,” she said.

The new math curriculum was piloted  last spring, but it was a whole year process. The program chosen was Eureka Math Squared.

The previous reading curriculum, which also was based on phonics and phonemic awareness, was geared toward early childhood, maybe up to third grade, and it didn’t meet the developmental needs of students in third, fourth and fifth grade, Lower-Welch said. The curriculum had not been addressed here in 10 years, she said.

Teachers requested something that is geared for vertical alignment from pre-K all the way to fifth grade, and 95 Phonics Core does that, she said. Pre-K is not participating in either program yet, but the district is on that path. The math curriculum also is on the kindergarten through fifth grade track.

Lentz said other districts are changing their reading curriculum because of the amount of teacher learning happening and the science of reading. The curriculum for reading now ties into other subjects, such as science or social studies, such as gaining familiarity with words or subjects taught in those lessons. The new curriculum ties in together phonics, vocabulary and comprehension. 

Lower-Welch said the district has heard positive results from teachers so far as far as the engagement level of students and some improvement in data regarding students showing more growth.