An Interview with Dr. Stefanie Steffan, Coordinator of Elementary Literacy and Title Programs, Rockwood School District. (MO)
In early September, Reading Horizons sat down with Stefanie Steffan, a 30-plus-year veteran of English Language Arts instruction and administration in the Greater St. Louis area. Stefanie shared her experiences, including her perspective on evolving literacy research and how administrators can choose the right reading curriculum for their districts. We edited the transcript to keep it clear and concise for readers.
Reading Horizons (RH)
Thanks for being with us today, Stefanie. I know you just went back to school in your district! I love this time of year. It makes me feel nostalgic for my childhood.
Stefanie Steffan (SS)
Yes! I visited some schools this morning. It was nice to be amongst the teachers and the kids. We heard about all the things that are working—and a few that aren’t! It’s nice to see the school year is moving forward. The kids and teachers are happy, so it’s all good.
RH
You’ve seen several changes in reading instruction over the last 30 years. Could you tell us your path to an English Language Arts administration leadership position?
SS
I started my career as a first-grade teacher in Rockwood School District, and in my first year of teaching, I realized halfway through the year that some of my kids were not making the progress I was hoping for. At the time, the big push was whole language instruction. The message was: get kids to love reading, read to them, share books with them, and they will love to read, want to read—and it would all work magically. But that just doesn’t work for all kids.
I was struggling with what to do with my kiddos who were not reading. So, I started working on my Master’s degree and Missouri Special Reading Certificate at night school—while I taught first grade during the day. It made a difference in my ability to help kids learn to read, which became my passion. From there, I became a reading specialist. I worked with kids in kindergarten through fifth grade and loved that.
And then I had twins and took a year off from teaching! While I was off, I was offered a job at one of our local universities teaching teachers—who were working on their reading certifications—how to be reading specialists. It was eye-opening to hear the struggles of some of their students. My one year off turned into seven!
RH
So, you went from teaching kids to teaching educators?
SS.
Exactly. I became passionate about teaching adults because my reach was greater if I could teach a room full of adults how to teach their own rooms full of kids. I did that for several years before returning to Rockwood as the Coordinator of Elementary Literacy in 2011. I’ve been in that position ever since—I love what I do! I went on to get my Education Specialist degree and my doctorate in Educational Leadership. I can make a more significant difference by impacting teachers and supporting them as they strive to help their students.
RH
That’s amazing, Stefanie. So, what does your day-to-day look like now?
SS
We have nineteen elementary schools in Rockwood, about 500 classroom teachers, and 41 certified reading specialists. I work with teachers to write curriculum, write assessments, and purchase everything they need to teach reading, writing, handwriting, grammar, spelling—all the things. And I also oversee our reading intervention program, which I am very proud of. The teachers and reading specialists do fantastic work. It’s exciting to see the difference they make.
RH
With all of your experience in reading instruction, how has the literacy landscape changed over the years, from when you started teaching to your current role?
SS
Great question! I’ve seen the pendulum swing back and forth. When I was working on my undergrad, like I said earlier, the emphasis was on whole language: talking about books, reading books, exposing kids to books. Then, it shifted to phonics, which is excellent, but if you take away that love of reading, you won’t be successful either. There should be a balance between helping kids develop a love of reading and an understanding of how to read. The ultimate goal is comprehension. Kids can’t comprehend text if they can’t access it. As our elementary students grow, they need to go from learning to read to reading to learn.
There’s so much involved in brain research and how kids learn to read. They need language development, comprehension, and the ability to decode words—but they also need to love doing it! You can teach them reading skills, but if they don’t enjoy it, they won’t practice it. When readers feel successful, they start to love it, want to practice it, and get even better.
RH
Let’s dig in briefly about how you built a successful elementary literacy program in Rockwood. Can you tell me about the process and how you came to the point where you decided to revamp your curriculum?
SS
Of course. It started with our Rockwood Literacy Leaders committee. Each of our nineteen schools has a representative for the primary grades and a representative for the intermediate grades, so 38 leaders come together ad hoc. We evaluated our current resources and reviewed the science of reading and current reading research. We worked with some outside experts from Mizzou and St. Louis University. We looked at what we have, what has changed, and what we need.
I came up with the idea of belief statements to ground us. There are so many messages out there, but we needed to stay focused on what we believe all kids deserve and use that as the foundation to make decisions moving forward. The belief statements shed a positive light on things rather than focusing on what we don’t have.
We came up with things like we believe kids deserve resources that will teach them to decode words and comprehend text. We believe kids deserve teachers who believe in them. We believe all kids can learn to read and write. Coming up with those took a long time; it was a process, but it was what we needed to help guide our decisions. Months later, when we were vetting solutions, we could ask, “Does this align with our beliefs?” And if it didn’t, we’d return to the drawing board.
RH
You also came up with belief statements for the teachers, right?
SS
That’s true. Those were things like, “We believe teachers deserve high-quality instructional materials and professional development. We believe teachers deserve administrators who believe in them and want them to grow.“
RH
I love that. How did you decide what curriculums to evaluate? And how did you use the belief statements to make a decision?
SS
We revamp our curriculum in eight-year cycles—English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, etc.—so making the right decision is critical. In the middle of the process, one of the selection committee members had a baby named Luke. When she returned from maternity leave, I said, “Whatever we choose now is how Luke will learn to read because he will be in third grade by the time we adopt new materials.” It’s that important. The decisions we make will last into the future. It’s an added stress of this job.
I have a giant spreadsheet of just about every product and program that exists. I asked teachers, “Have you heard of anything in other districts you want us to consider?” I’m also in a cohort of other language arts coordinators in the St. Louis area. We meet once a month and email each other a lot. One of the things we look at is what other people in our area are using—and what they think of it.
The last time we evaluated our ELA curriculum in 2015, the teachers wanted a program that had everything in it. They wanted one product with reading, writing, spelling, word study—all the things in one program. So we did that. We adopted a program that had all the things. Once they got into it, they liked certain parts but didn’t like others. So, they started looking for other resources to supplement the parts that they didn’t like. It turned into teachers using a hodgepodge of different materials. Education in Rockwood differed from one school to the next or from one classroom to another.
So this time, the teachers said, “We want the best thing to teach reading comprehension, we want the best thing to teach writing, we want the best thing to teach phonics.” It was a shift. We searched for what we thought was the best for each skill area. And in conjunction with that, we are required to teach the Missouri Learning Standards, so we had to make sure whatever we got aligned with those.
I had so many samples and sales rep meetings and whittled down resources that deserved a deeper look. And then, we had the committee look at the options and had several field tests. We had our eggs in one vendor’s basket for K-2, but when we did a field test for the program, the teachers didn’t like it! Then we were like, “Well, shoot, now what are we going to do?!”
We didn’t come across Reading Horizons until the final hour. Our Reading Horizons rep reached out and said they have this whole new digital platform, and she thought we really would like it. And I told her, “You squeezed in just in time.” We flew to Alabama to observe teachers use the program in their classrooms. We received samples for our teachers, and they loved it!
RH
It sounds like you almost went in a different direction! That’s wild. So, after implementing Reading Horizons, what did the early results look like?
SS
It’s exciting to see our assessment data. We’re seeing significant growth, especially from first to second grade. It’s impressive. The kids that had Reading Horizons last year in first grade made great gains. It’s very encouraging.
RH
I know there had to be some challenges along the way. Could you touch on any and how you overcame them?
SS
The biggest hurdle is that with so many teachers, there are differing views. There’s a group that has done a lot of research on the science of reading and current reading trends. They were all on board with Structured Literacy and phonics. Then, some teachers don’t think structured phonics is fun or engaging for the students. With them, we have to get over the hurdle. And they are getting on board as they see their students’ reading and writing growth. There are ways to make phonics fun, and that’s where we are now. The teachers have learned how to do it. They’re good at implementing it. They know how to do the lessons.
Getting everyone on board with the same product, program, or philosophy—or anything new—is always challenging when leading an entire district through a change.
RH
Is there anything specific about Reading Horizons that made the anticipated challenges easier to overcome?
SS
It’s just such a new way of delivering a lesson. I love that it’s on the teacher’s iPad so she can walk around. It frees the teacher from being in front of the class to wherever she needs to be. If she needs to stand with a kiddo that doesn’t get it, she can. It takes teachers away from having to be at the Smartboard or whiteboard in front of the class. They can move around.
Having everything right there to click through the lesson helps ensure that teachers teach the lessons with fidelity. There’s no, “We’re going to skip over this,” because to get through to the next part, we have to go through it all. So we know for sure that all of our kids are getting all of the lessons.
I like the assessment piece. The data is right there, telling us who got it, who doesn’t, who needs reteaching. It’s engaging for the kids. They love using the software and doing Skill Checks. They like finishing the activities there. It’s a really neat program. I know it’s different than anything else we looked at. It gets kids decoding and encoding methodically and efficiently.
RH
I always like to end by asking, “What’s next?” or, “Where do you go from here?”
SS
Even though Math is our next curriculum to review, Language Arts is never done. I still meet with my Literacy Leaders. We still gather feedback from teachers. We still look at what they need and make revisions as we go. One of the things that I’ve gotten the most positive feedback on is the Reading Horizons coaching days. We had a coach come and work with each team of teachers at each school for a few days, and they really benefited from that. We also did days in the spring when teachers came during their planning time and met with a coach from Reading Horizons. They talked through what was going well, what they were struggling with, and what they needed help with. Plus, our new teachers have a mentor in their school, and they learn from the training videos that Reading Horizons provides. I’m impressed with how well our teachers have done.
RH
Amazing. Any last words of wisdom before we say goodbye?
SS
I have to share this story a parent told me. They had taken their kids on vacation and were in a hotel room. The younger kiddo pulled out the Bible from the drawer and said, “What’s a Holly Bibble?” And the older brother, a first grader in our district, said, “That doesn’t say Holly Bibble. It says Holy Bible! We know it’s a long ‘o’ because…” and he just went through and explained why the “o” and the “i” were long and how to break the words apart into two syllables. The mom told me she couldn’t believe he was explaining it in first grade. It was kind of cute. But it also shows that what we’re doing is working!
RH
That’s a touching story. Thank you for sharing. And thank you for sharing all of your knowledge today.
SS
You’re welcome!
[END]
Choose an effective foundational reading program that meets your goals. Connect with a Literacy Solution Specialist!
