MARSHALL — Reading is a key skill for all students — but at the same time, it’s one many children struggle with, said Park Side Elementary Principal Darci Love.

Love said staff at Marshall Public Schools are taking an approach that looks at the science of how people learn to read, in order to help Marshall students.

Love gave a presentation on the science of reading during the Marshall School Board’s Dec. 19 meeting.

“It’s really what makes all other learning possible, so it’s my passion,” Love said. “Without reading, we are doing our kids a disservice.”

Nationwide, more than one-third of fourth-grade students don’t read on a basic level, and another third are at risk for not meeting grade level expectations, she said.

“That leaves two-thirds of our kids who really need very explicit and systematic instruction,” she said.

“The good news is that all but 2 to 5% of our students can learn to read with the right instruction,” Love said. “Really there’s no magic bullet, there’s not a program, there’s not anything like that. But rather it’s educating and helping our teachers understand what that process looks like.”

Over the years, educators have taken different approaches to teaching reading, Love said. Those approaches have included “whole language,” which focuses on reading comprehension and immersing students in reading; and phonics, which emphasizes how letters represent the sounds in words.

“There were two very different camps,” she said.

However, in more recent years educators have been looking more closely at the science of reading and how the brain develops, she said.

Reading is an acquired skill, unlike spoken language, Love said. In learning to read, the brain needs to make new connections between spoken language and visual symbols, and then process the meaning of the words.

“We have to teach or wire the brain in order to make those connections,” Love said.

Love said students need to be able to both comprehend spoken language, and be able to decode written words efficiently.

“It’s really a product of those two things,” she said.

Love said MPS is taking action to help students learn to read by helping them master those decoding skills. That includes using instruction programs that focus on phonics, and making connections between the sound of words and written letters, she said.

“We’ve also been very focused on data, and ensuring our instruction is driven by data,” Love said. Teachers use short assessments to help see where students are at in learning to decode words.

“It helps us monitor that, to see if they are hitting those foundational skills,” she said. “We talk a lot about how those are not skills we just teach and move on. We teach and re-teach and teach again until they are mastered.”

Professional development for teachers is also part of the process to help improve reading skills, Love said.

“We have instructional coaches in both Park Side and Southview who are phenomenal, and help our teachers out considerably,” she said.

Additionally, a total of 11 Park Side teachers and four Southview teachers are taking a two-year training program from the Minnesota Department of Education called LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling).

“We also have a literacy advisory team at Park Side, Southview and a district-level one as well,” Love said. “It’s a group of teachers who meet on a regular basis to talk about our literacy instruction, look at our progress, and talk about what next steps we need to make.”

Moving forward, Love said MPS staff will continue to learn how children learn to read, and work to shift practices in order to be more consistent with research.

“All of my research and reading and understanding has gone back to that simple view of reading,” Love said. “We’ve got to teach kids to decode, and ensure that they understand the language.”