Reading And Math

THE GOOD NEWS about reading test scores in city schools all but obscured another accomplishment: Mathematics scores shot up, as well. At school after school in this year's administration of the California Test of Basic Skills, math scores paralleled reading scores on an upward slope. Dallas F. Nicholas Sr. Elementary was an example. Third-grade median reading scores jumped from 28 percent last year to 45 percent this year, while math scores moved from 32 percent to 68 percent. Since the first and third R's are so intertwined - you can't work a math problem if you can't read it - it's not surprising that reading and math scores shadow each other, especially on a nationally standardized test such as the CTBS.

Delighted with the big gains city school pupils made on reading and math tests, education officials plan to keep their current strategies while increasing efforts to teach pre-reading skills to 4- and 5-year-olds. "For now I would stay the course," said Betty Morgan, chief academic officer of city schools. School officials are beginning an in-depth analysis of the soaring scores reported last week from the national standardized test city elementary pupils took this spring. Sixth- and seventh-grade scores have yet to be released.

Area schools and literacy programs seek volunteers to help children and adults to improve reading skills. Among them: Huntingdon Baptist Tutorial Program, 400 E. 31st St., volunteers to tutor elementary school pupils in reading and math from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Volunteers with a college degree or credits are preferred. Information: Del Sweeney, 410-377-5358. If your school or organization is seeking volunteer reading tutors and would like to be included in this listing, call Sundial, 410- 783-1800 and enter code 6130.

NEW YORK -- School investigators charged yesterday that dozens of teachers and two principals across New York City's public school system had helped students cheat on the standardized reading and mathematics tests that help determine how schools are ranked and whether students move on to the next grade. The cheating incident appears to be one of the largest in the recent history of U.S. public schools, the investigators said. At some schools, teachers and principals let students mark their answers on scrap or notebook paper, then told them which answers to correct when they filled in the official test booklets, the investigators said.

Area schools and literacy programs seek volunteers to help children and adults improve reading skills and to assist in related projects.Among them are:Children's Guild, a school serving children with emotional difficulties. Tutors are needed between 8: 30 a.m. and 2: 30 p.m. weekdays to work with pupils in elementary reading and math at the school's Annapolis location, 1399 Forest Drive. Contact: Earl Hines, 410-636-7255.Gregory Foundation, 600 Reisterstown Road, Suite 306, Pikesville, a private, nonprofit human services agency that works with special-needs children in foster care.

FIRST CAME the reading wars. Then the mathematics wars. The two are waged on adjacent battlefields by similar armies wielding similar weapons.Both wars pit traditional basic skills against "higher-order thinking" and "process." On the one side: phonics, "old math" and Direct Instruction. On the other: "whole language" and "whole math," group discussion, lots of essays, calculators (in math) and guessing (in both math and reading).A glossary is helpful. Don't confuse whole math with "new math," the early '60s craze.