North Carolina District ‘Knocking It Out of the Park’ in English Language Arts

Walk into an early elementary classroom these days in Nash County (NC) Public Schools, and you’re apt to notice something altogether different about the learning experience.

Students are writing about the changing of the seasons; they’re writing about Ruby Bridges and what it was like for her to enter a segregated, all-white public school in 1960.

Nicole Hayes, the district’s K–2 English language arts content specialist, recalls classroom observations the second week of the 2024–25 school year.

“Typically, when you go to an elementary school, in kindergarten, first, and second grade, you see a lot of writing about students getting to know each other,” she said. “My favorite this. My favorite that. But what we noticed, in first grade, they were already writing about the text they were reading, … and using text evidence.”

This is no minor adjustment for the roughly 15,000-student school district just east of Raleigh.

“That’s a big shift,” Hayes said. “The writing is connected to what they are reading, which is a huge part of the science of reading.”

A key driver of the changes observed in Nash County classrooms is the district’s decision to switch to the Wit & Wisdom® curriculum for grades K–5. The school district switched to Wit & Wisdom for grades 3–5 in 2019–20. For K–2, the transition took place two years later. The curriculum emphasizes building background knowledge on important topics, the use of engaging and complex texts, and a focus on vocabulary development.

The shift to Wit & Wisdom in Nash also appears to be reflected in student achievement. Data from state English language arts assessments shows steady growth. To spotlight some of the successes:

• Fourth grade students went from 39 percent proficient in reading in spring 2023 to 45 percent proficient in spring 2024.
• In fifth grade, student proficiency rates jumped from 28 percent to 37 percent proficient.
• In grades K–2, Nash County students made steady gains over the past three years on the district’s foundational reading test.

The chart below shows that according to mCLASS/DIBELS eighth edition (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) assessment, the end of year data for kindergarten through Grade 2 shows an increase in the number of students reaching/exceeding benchmark (green & blue) each year from 2021 to 2024.

“We are making more gains in K–2 literacy, and we think a lot of that is because our teachers have gone through the science of reading training,” said Melissa Dancy-Smith, Nash County’s assistant superintendent of academic services and accountability. “And they are bringing some of those practices into their classroom instruction.” North Carolina has supported all elementary teachers in getting LETRS training, which addresses foundational reading skills.

Recently, the district was recognized by the state for its achievement gains in K–2, as well as other grade levels. State Superintendent for Public Instruction Catherine Truitt had a lot to say about Nash County at a State Board of Education meeting over the summer.

“Nash County schools have done an amazing job of getting in classrooms and looking at actually what's happening, giving targeted feedback, and looking at how they can use their resources with fidelity,” Truitt said. “They've got incredible data protocols that all of their demonstration coaches, teachers, that everyone is doing related to classroom needs. So they're just knocking it out of the park.”

Another major shift since the adoption of Wit and Wisdom is the mindset of K–2 teachers in the Nash County district.

Hayes recalls pushback she heard from teachers when the district first shared the books students would be asked to read as part of the new curriculum. “That first year we gave Wit & Wisdom to K–2 [teachers] in every single school, that’s all I heard back from teachers: ‘[Students] can’t read this book. They can’t understand this book. These are too hard,” Hayes said.

Hayes knew this reaction was not because the teachers didn’t believe in their students. “What you really saw was their misunderstanding of how students learn to read,” she said.

Now, the change in teacher mindset is really settling in. “I see less and less pushback” from teachers, Hayes said. No one has said to me yet this year, ‘Shouldn’t I use another text? This is too hard. Kindergartners can’t read that.’ So that shift is happening, and it’s exciting to see.”

The change in mindset is not just in evidence among teachers, but also elementary school principals. “At the district level, we recognize that in order to change the teachers’ mindsets, we had to change the way principals thought about teaching and learning, as well as about what students could do,” said Melissa Dancy-Smith, the Nash County assistant superintendent of academic services and accountability.

To help facilitate that, the district began using “ The Opportunity Myth” report from TNTP as a tool for professional development, to help teachers realign their expectations. That seminal report, based on extensive analysis and observations, finds that most students—especially students of color and those from low-income families—spend the vast majority of their school days missing out on four crucial resources: grade-appropriate assignments, strong instruction, deep engagement, and teachers with high expectations.

“When we introduced that [report] to our principals, it was eye-opening for them to see,” said Assistant Superintendent Dancy-Smith. It hit home for them, she said, that some of the same things were happening in their own schools.

Monique Hargrove-Jones, the executive director for elementary education in the Nash district, also sees the changes in what happens in Nash County early grades classrooms, particularly the use of evidence-based practices and routines embedded in Wit & Wisdom.

“Students are answering questions” based on what they read, Hargrove-Jones said. We see “the notices and the wonders, and the knowledge journals.” In the past, she said, “if we had writing in K–2, it was patterned writing, filling in one word of a sentence with a ‘sentence starter.’ Writing about your weekend, not in response to text.”

Hayes, the ELA content specialist, marveled at the way she has observed students in second grade engaging with texts like a book about the changing seasons that finds parallels to how people change over time as well as the book Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story by Ruby Bridges.

In one classroom, Hayes recalled seeing a T Chart up of “notices and wonders.” In one column students filled in what they noticed about the Ruby Bridges book. In the other column, they listed what they wondered.

“I was blown away” by the discussion among students, she said. “They were using the words ‘segregate’ and ‘integrate’.” She heard students ask: “Why wouldn’t you want to integrate your school?” “Why are those people so angry?” And, “She’s a little girl. Why would you do that?”

Melissa Dancy-Smith, the assistant superintendent, acknowledged that the district has plenty of work ahead to ensure the shifts in the early grades are carried through.

“But we are proud of our work," she said.