Hoboken Trains Teachers To Help Every Student Read At Grade Level, Combat Learning Loss

HOBOKEN, NJ — While educators were worried about learning loss during the pandemic, the Hoboken public schools trained teachers in a special method of teaching reading.

Sandra Rodriguez-Gomez, the assistant superintendent of schools, and Christy Gaudio, RTI instructor, have been the key players behind a major push across grade levels and schools to enroll teachers in a specialized literacy instruction course from IMSE. The course trains teachers in a program based on Orton-Gillingham, which follows the science of reading.

Rodriguez, the former Brandt Primary School principal and director of early childhood education, was once a Head Start student in Newark and knows the power that an incredible teacher can have on children.

Following safety measures, she helped keep the doors open at Hoboken throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to give parents choice, the only area district to do so.

“Teachers are the conduit of success,” said Rodriguez.

After connecting with a reading specialist at the school who spoke at length about her personal
journey with Orton-Gillingham, she sought funding from the Hoboken Public Education Foundation.

Joining forces with Christy Gaudio, the two of them started on a plan to find a partner to train its teachers in a comprehensive program anchored in the Science of Reading.

This past fall, the school district completed its second phase of OG training facilitated by IMSE, resulting in 100 percent of its K-2 teachers being trained in OG methodology. Additionally, the district has all of its reading specialists, K-5 special education teachers, a core group of special education resource room teachers, and one lead teacher in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades in each of its elementary schools.

The OG approach emphasizes highly explicit systematic teaching around phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Additionally, the approach is multi-sensory in nature, which ensures multiple learning pathways (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) are activated as students are learning to read.

The district’s next move is to assemble a cohort of literacy leaders with IMSE Instructor Certification, in-house trainers to train new teachers and provide refreshers for existing staff,and take this to the middle school.

Teachers participated in 30 hours of training. Feedback has been extremely positive, and while it can take 4-5 years to see major impact, literacy gains in some grades are as high as 20 percent.

Says Rodriguez, “We are solutions oriented. While we are always trying to raise the bar in partnership with our teachers, sometimes we have nervous or reluctant learners; Gaudio has been incredible, working hand in hand with each educator to build their confidence, and give them the chance to bloom on their own time.”

Along with the implementation of IMSE’s OG methodology, Hoboken Public Schools has incorporated other tools to fill the literacy toolboxes of the students in their district. For example,all K-2 teachers were trained in the use of the Developmental Reading Assessment 3 (DRA3), which identifies students who need additional foundational reading support before deficits occur.

The DRA3 offers teachers the tools they need to observe and document students’ reading levels and helps to inform practice. Additionally, the district has introduced Fast ForWord; an online reading platform that uses a brain-based approach to target skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and comprehension.

Says Gaudio, “Our teachers now have the critical tools they need to provide explicit instruction that helps all their students learn to read. Teachers are coming up and saying thank you, and it's been remarkable to see their progress.”