UPDATED: Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath likes what he sees at local school

Teaching kids reading was the focus of Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath's visit Tuesday to Wichita Falls.

The state's top education official visited Southern Hills Elementary School to a see new reading curriculum in action, and then he went on to the Region 9 Education Service Center to speak to superintendents about the best way to teach children reading, Dr. Donny Lee, Wichita Falls ISD superintendent, said.

Tuesday morning, Morath got a close up look at how Southern Hills students and teachers Amplify Texas curriculum that WFISD paid for with the help of state funding.

“I had a great visit at Southern Hills Elementary and was able to witness curricular and instructional improvements initiated by the district firsthand," Morath said in a statement Tuesday. "I saw kids reading Shakespeare and learning about the war of 1812 — all indications of a robust learning environment.”

What did Commissioner Morath see at the WFISD school?

Lee said Morath visited four classrooms at Southern Hills, including a period where teachers got together to plan lessons for the day and week using Amplify curriculum.

"He got to kind of peek behind the curtain, see how the lessons are designed," Lee said in an interview Wednesday.

Morath sat in on the planning period and asked questions, Lee said. From there, Morath went into three more classrooms for first-grade reading, first-grade bilingual reading and fourth-grade reading.

The commissioner walked around and talked with students as they were working on their Amplify reading assignments, asked a lot of questions and had a lot of praise for what he saw in the classes, Lee said.

WFISD's new reading curriculum

Lee said it's early yet to tell how well the curriculum is working. The district's testing, as well as the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness will provide eventually information to analyze and reflect on how WFISD is doing with it.

“But there's a buy-in from the teachers and buy-ins from the students," Lee said.

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Southern Hills, Booker T. Washington and Burgess are among three WFISD elementary schools that implemented Amplify Texas about five months ago as their sole reading curriculum.

A state grant of about $500,000 helped the district furnish the curriculum, approved by the Texas Education Agency, to campuses that feed into Kirby Middle School.

In the 2024-2025 school year, WFISD is expanding the Amplify Texas curriculum to Scotland Park, Zundy, Fain, Cunningham and Franklin elementary schools with the help of a $430,000 grant from the James N. McCoy Foundation.

Praise for WFISD

Morath discussed the curriculum with Lee and Southern Hills Principal Amanda Garcia.

Besides the commissioner, members of his team and representatives from Region 9 Education Service Center also toured Southern Hills Tuesday. School Board President Katherine McGregor and Place 2 Trustee Diann Scroggins were also among those at the school Tuesday morning for the commissioner's visit.

"During his visit, Mr. Morath commended the school for their dedication and the incredible efforts of our teachers and leadership," WFISD officials said in a Facebook post.

What did Commissioner Morath tell area superintendents?

Morath's next stop Tuesday was Region 9 ESC where he spoke to superintendents.

The commissioner spoke about his focus on and study of reading, as well as what he has discovered is the most effective way to make sure students learn to read, Lee said.

Much of it is built around increasing students' knowledge of topics through exposure to different groups of people who are talking about different topics, for instance, at the dinner table at home, church, Sunday school and extracurricular activities, Lee said.

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“Then you go to school, and you're around your peers and your teacher, and you're talking about different things and hearing different words,” he said.

What does cricket have to do with it?

Morath's point was the more children are exposed to different words and increase their knowledge about those words, the better their understanding of them will be when they see them in text, Lee said.

That is because a child might be able to read a word but not understand its meaning or different meanings for it

The word "cricket" for instance, can mean an insect or a sports game, but a child might only know the insect meaning, Lee said.

The sports game cricket was used in a passage from a STAAR test question a couple of years ago, he said.

“It's a complex but strategic way to move forward to ensure that kids are learning how to read. We've got to get there by third grade," Lee said.

Trish Choate, enterprise watchdog reporter for the Times Record News, covers education, courts, breaking news and more. Contact Trish with news tips at tchoate@gannett.com. Read her recent work here. Her X handle is @Trishapedia.

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath visits Wichita Falls