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 7:33 p.m. Jan 9, 2019 — Updated 7:59 p.m. Jan 9, 2019

Kelly Hinchcliffe

, WRAL education reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — 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.

Under North Carolina's Read to Achieve program, students must be reading at grade level by the end of third grade in order to advance. The latest data show only 56.3 percent of the state's third-graders were proficient in reading last school year. Earlier grades did not perform any better. Only 52 percent of first-graders were reading on grade level last school year, and 56 percent of second-graders did the same.

Trip 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.

N.C. State released a study last year showing the state's Read fo Achieve program has had no gains for third-graders, with five years of test scores showing little benefit. The state has spent more than $150 million on the program, but researchers found it was too focused on third grade and that having each school district implement the program led to inconsistencies from teacher skills to the type of summer reading camps offered.

"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?"

Study: No gains for North Carolina 3rd grade literacy effort

Last year, nearly 31,000 students who were struggling with reading were invited to attend third-grade reading camps across the state. Of those, about 13,500 students, or 44 percent, attended. Less than a quarter of those attending, about 3,200 students, were proficient in reading after leaving the camp, according to the state's latest annual report on the program.

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.

Superintendent Johnson allocates funds for literacy training and coaching

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.

Winston-Salem State University Provost Anthony Graham co-chaired the UNC System Educator Preparation Advisory Group and shared updates with the state board on Wednesday. His group met once a month for four hours and came up with 11 recommendations for how colleges can better teach reading instruction.

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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