Like other veteran elementary school teachers in Baltimore, Ellen Mass-Soltz was skeptical -- perhaps even a bit cynical -- about the new phonics-based reading textbooks bought last summer for every elementary school.

But after seven months, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School teacher says she is a believer in the new books, if not yet a crusader for them, because her children are reading and writing better than in past years.

"It is not utopia. You can't expect it to be," Mass-Soltz said. "But what I have seen is very rewarding to me."

Dawn Simon-Matthews, a young, less experienced teacher miles away at Ashburton Elementary School, has been impressed as well. In her fourth year of teaching, she had felt ambivalent when school officials handed her a third approach to reading.

But now, she says, "I like the program very much." The Open Court Publishing Co. series has helped her slower learners by giving them tools to break down words.

The selection of $3.8 million in new elementary textbooks last year appears to have been embraced by veteran and novice teachers throughout Baltimore. They say they are seeing improvements in reading, spelling and writing -- particularly in kindergarten and first grade.

If they are right, and those improvements translate into better test scores, the city school system may be about to see its first victory in the battle to reform a system labeled "academically bankrupt" by the former schools chief.

Marriage of two series

Initially criticized for its failure to include a strong phonics-based textbook among the choices from which the school board could select last year, the city school staff regrouped and recommended a marriage of two series.

Open Court's Collections for Young Scholars was chosen for its phonics and structure in the early grades, and Houghton Mifflin's Invitations to Literacy was picked for the last three elementary grades for its focus on literature and critical-thinking skills.

It was the school system's first major textbook purchase in a decade.

Houghton Mifflin representative Dana Dreher said the introduction of the series in third through fifth grades has gone well.

Mary McAdoo, a consultant for Open Court, is so confident the series is changing reading that she predicts improved standardized test scores this year for first-graders. While she says that not every teacher or every school has accepted the new approach, she believes 85 percent of the schools have done a fair or good job with the reading series.

How well Baltimore students do in the coming years is important for the publishers as well as the children.

Other urban school systems around the country will be watching whether test scores improve. And Open Court, a small, less-established reading series, could stand to benefit.

With that in mind, both publishers agreed to provide, free of charge, four full-time consultants who come in each week to coach principals and teachers.

A change in teaching

The Open Court series for kindergarten through second grade has forced many teachers in the system to change the way they teach.

Rather than memorizing words, students are required to learn the sound made for each letter and how to blend the sounds to form words.

Each teacher is given large alphabet cards to display all year in the classroom, a reading anthology, workbooks and a textbook. They must follow a daily format that dictates how and what to teach.

On any given day, thousands of the city's first-graders are supposed to be learning exactly the same lesson.

One administrator said she visited three classrooms in three schools one day and found all the students on the same lesson.

That is in sharp contrast to previous years, when each school could choose its own textbook series. More than a dozen reading textbooks were used in the system. Sometimes, first-grade teachers across the hall from one another used different teaching methods.

The different methods proved disastrous for the many children who moved from one school to another in the middle of the year.

It was a problem recognized throughout the system. Even so, many veteran teachers had found their method and were not easily persuaded to try something new.

"I have a lot of teachers on my staff who are veterans. They said, 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks,' " said Jacqueline Waters-Scofield, principal at Mount Washington Elementary School.

But as the year goes on, she said, teachers have expressed satisfaction with the new programs.

Kindergartners will begin next year having mastered the sounds that letters make, and some are reading, she said. Teachers expect next year's first- and second-graders to be better prepared, and therefore able to learn to read more proficiently.

Teachers say their main concern about the new reading program is that this year's second- graders missed the phonics they needed. Teachers began the year using first-grade materials and probably won't be able to finish the second-grade readers by the end of the year.

"We went back a little bit to move forward," said Simon-Matthews.

Now, a change in math

Principals and administrators are also concerned that if a school board plan to buy new math textbooks for kindergarten through eighth grade is approved, elementary school teachers may feel overwhelmed by having to introduce two programs in two years.

Some administrators have argued that the school system ought to put more emphasis on reading and give teachers another year to become proficient in teaching phonics before moving ahead with math.

In the city's 19 lowest-performing schools, the math textbook changes will be delayed to continue the focus on reading, says Betty Morgan, chief academic officer.

The remaining elementary teachers will be trained this summer.

"We have some dismal math scores," she said. "We cannot afford to wait."

She believes teachers may be worried now but will be able to handle the change.

Morgan says the success of the Open Court and Houghton Mifflin series will not only produce better readers, but give teachers more confidence in their teaching skills.

Simon-Matthews at Ashburton and Mass-Soltz at King teach very different groups of students, but the two have seen similar results.

Ashburton's pupils come from a middle-class neighborhood, while 87 percent of the King pupils qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

Simon-Matthews' second-graders were squirming in their seats and barely able to concentrate in October. While some were reading easily, others could read only haltingly or barely at all.

Last week, the class was able to hold a conversation about bravery, discussing what it meant to stand up for yourself or for others. Most children could write several coherent sentences expressing their views, using words as sophisticated as "betrayed."

Measuring improvement

Simon-Matthews believes the program has allowed her to give her top students work that stretches them -- giving her the time to work with the children who need more help.

Mass-Soltz said she used to dread weekly spelling tests because students usually performed so poorly. Now, the tests she posts have 100s written across the top.

Last year, children at King Elementary ended first grade reading eight months behind, or on the same level the average student reads in October of the first grade, according to standardized test scores. But Mass-Soltz believes only four of her 20 children this year are struggling to read.

Part of the teachers' enthusiasm is based on their belief that the school system, having spent so much money on textbooks, will stick to its promise to keep the reading program in place for five years. That gives teachers, who are weary of constant change, a reason to commit themselves to the new approach.

Principals said Open Court and the Houghton Mifflin series have produced results, although they are most enthusiastic about the changes they have seen in the early grades with Open Court.

At Bentalou Elementary School, where Houghton Mifflin is being used, Principal Mary Ann Winterling says her third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teachers "are seeing progress, but we are not seeing as much progress as Open Court."

"I am extremely pleased," she says. The children in kindergarten through second grade "aren't reading on grade level, but they are moving toward it faster."

Pub Date: 4/04/99