Healthy Community Initiative

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Check out this good news story featuring Northfield students and staff!

KSTP-TV aired the story on Wednesday about the success Northfield Public Schools is seeing with reading scores since implementing a science-based reading curriculum in 2022.

HCI is proud to have helped make the teaching training possible. Having all children be at grade level in reading and math by the end of third grade is one of the 10 Northfield Promise cradle to career benchmarks and is one of the school district’s 11 benchmarks.

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The Northfield Public School District is seeing success after changing its reading curriculum for student learning.

The latest 2021 through 2024 school data show that half of the students in Minnesota are not meeting or exceeding grade-level reading standards.

In 2022, the Northfield Public School District shifted its approach to teaching reading, moving away from using picture cues to solve the problem.

They launched the science-based “Bridge2Read” program, which is a new curriculum grounded in phonics.

According to the district, since implementing the phonics-based approach, 63% of third graders have scored at or above reading level, compared to the state average of 46%.

“We start with simple steps, and then every single lesson increases with complexity,” Darren Lofquist, Bridgewater Elementary teacher, said. “We’re seeing them able to transfer what they’re learning during our whole group lessons really effectively to their independent work.”

At Bridgewater Elementary School, second graders are learning to break words apart so the meaning comes together.

“That overall really helps build a solid comprehension for reading,” Lofquist said. “We really want kids to feel successful, feel like they’re empowered to do super well and just have those skills to kind of build on later on in their education career.”

In Northfield, teachers are being trained to focus less on pictures and more on phonics in the classroom.

“Our goal is to get every child to read at grade level every year. So our teachers study the science of reading and they use that in their daily practice to give the students that opportunity,” Alisha Clarey, K12 instructional systems and instructional specialist, said.

In the classroom, the payoff is clear as students blend sounds and build confidence.

“We want kids to rely on the word and not relying on the picture cube because when that picture is taken away, they often struggle to decode words,” Hope Langston, Bridgewater Elementary school interim principal, said. “We know [it’s successful] by our student outcomes. We know by our teacher experience with using these methods in the classroom.”

Northfield is not keeping these strategies to itself. Education leaders explained they’re passing it along to help other districts succeed. 

The district launched its new initiative before the statewide READ ACT initiative took effect in 2023, aiming to have every child reading at or above grade level by kindergarten. 

District officials explained they used COVID-19 funds to kick off the new curriculum, and they have community support. They mentioned the nonprofit Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) funded additional teacher trainings to help with the mission.

by Brittney Ermon KSTP for KSTP.com