Want to improve NC third-graders' reading skills? Start interventions even earlier, researchers say
If North Carolina public schools want to improve third-graders' reading skills, they need to expand reading intervention efforts to earlier grades, possibly as early as pre-kindergarten, researchers told the State Board of Education on Wednesday. Board members also heard about colleges' efforts to improve how they teach reading instruction to students who are studying to become teachers.
Posted — UpdatedTrip Stallings, policy researcher at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University, said better interventions in earlier grades could help the state make more progress in reading achievement. The state should also examine how each of the 115 school districts implement the Read to Achieve program and, when schools are successful, try to replicate those efforts across the state.
Currently, the state's 115 school districts appear to be operating the program very differently under a few common parameters, Stallings said.
"We want to know more about what is happening in each camp, what is happening in each school," Stallings said. "What does the students’ experience look like?"
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson and other officials have said the study doesn't show that the Read to Achieve program should end. Instead, they are trying to improve the program by expanding the summer reading camps to first- and second-graders, reducing testing and working with parents.
Pat Ryan, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, who championed the literacy program in the General Assembly, told reporters last year, "Senate staff has already been analyzing the successes and failures at the local level to make policy adjustments, as would happen with any major initiative.
"Early reading proficiency is arguably the most consequential metric in childhood education, and we’re committed to preparing North Carolina’s students for a successful future," Ryan said.
North Carolina college leaders say they are also working to improve children's reading skills. Last school year, then-University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings commissioned a curriculum review of the 14 UNC system colleges with undergraduate teacher preparation programs, with a focus on how faculty teach reading. Three reviewers with expertise in reading research and educational policy visited each of the colleges.
During Wednesday's meeting, state board member Wayne McDevitt urged his colleagues to remember that some students live in homes with no books. He said the board should consider finding early intervention efforts "all the way back to birth," not just pre-kindergarten.
"We have to be passionate about this as a state," he said.
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