About half of Delaware's third-graders struggle to read
Nearly half of all third-graders in Delaware cannot read at grade level.
In 17 low-income ZIP codes in Wilmington, Dover, and western and central Sussex County, that rate increases to 63 percent. More than half of 8- and 9-year-olds living in those neighborhoods can't get through books like "Charlotte's Web" or "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" without help.
Jayden Bowers is a third-grader at New Castle Elementary School. He has to sound out a lot of words before he can recognize them. He's making progress every day with the help of one-on-one tutors from Reading Assist, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching the foundations of reading to struggling students.
"I'm not that kind of a good reader," the 8-year-old said. "Some people don't know some words."
On Thursday, for instance, he slowly sounded out the word "squint," at first pronouncing each individual letter, then squishing them together.
S - q - u - i - n - t.
S - qu - i - n - t.
S - qu - in - t.
Squi - nt.
Squint.
When most people hear the word "literacy," they think of the ability to read and to write.
But the issue goes beyond that.
Ask someone in education, someone tasked with imparting those skills onto young children, and you'll get a much more complex definition.
"There's a lot of parts to literacy," said Vickie Innes, executive director of Reading Assist. "You must be able to first read what's written on the page. You must be able to read it accurately and fluently and comprehend it. You must have vocabulary knowledge so you can comprehend and understand it.
"All those different parts make you a proficient reader."
Proficiency — that's what state and national tests measure and use as an indicator of students' overall literacy. Just being able to read words on a page isn't enough, state experts said, though students like Bowers struggle even with that.
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Students must also be able to decode text and explain what it means, in both very simple and very complex terms.
"It's not just reading and writing," Innes said.
Reading Assist is just one group teaching kids how to read.
On Wednesday, the United Way teamed up with the state Education Department to launch the Delaware Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. The goal is to bring together state government, nonprofits like Reading Assist, foundations, schools and other groups to improve literacy in Delaware.
"A child's ability to read on grade level is an important indicator of school success and high school graduation," said Michelle Taylor, president and CEO of United Way of Delaware. "If there's anything we can do to set us on a good trajectory for the future, it's to make sure every kid, every child, can read on grade level."
Kishayla Payne-Miller, a student adviser at Bower's school, said reading is by far one of the most important skills anyone can have.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't have to read something whether it be an email a text or reading to make myself more proficient at my job," she said. "Reading to me is the root of everything you do in life."
What are the facts?
Conversations around literacy are often tethered to the third grade.
“That’s kind of the turning point where kids go from learning to read … to reading to learn,” said Janice Barlow, director of KIDS COUNT Delaware. The data center is part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a large national nonprofit that monitors literacy in the United States and launched the national Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.
If you look at recent state test scores, only 52 percent of third-graders were reading at grade level in 2017, down from 54 percent in 2015 and 2016.
Those numbers are much more favorable than those reported by the Nation’s Report Card for Delaware, raising the question of just how far behind Delaware has fallen in terms of literacy.
According to the Report Card, which tests kids in fourth grade instead of third, only 37 percent of students were reading at grade level in 2015, compared to the national average of 36 percent.
Delaware, when compared to the rest of the United States, falls squarely in the middle, tied for 21st place with Maryland, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin in reading proficiency.
Students of color and low-income students performed much worse, according to the data.
Only 21 percent of black students were at grade level according to the Report Card, while 22 percent of Hispanic students were. Similarly, only 21 percent of low-income students were proficient in reading.
Research shows third-grade literacy has an enormous impact on students’ lives – a child who can read at grade level by third grade is four times more likely to graduate on time.
Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time.
“If they’re struggling at the end of third grade, they’re going to struggle even more later in school,” said Donna Johnson, executive director of the State Board of Education. “Those students that don’t graduate on time or drop out have a much lower lifelong earning potential.”
Just living in a high-poverty neighborhood can exacerbate the ill effects of poor reading skills and family poverty. More than a third of students with all three risk factors fail to finish high school, according to a "double jeopardy" study of third-grade reading proficiency.
Even living in a high-poverty neighborhood for a short amount of time can have an impact – the study showed students continued to perform poorly after they moved.
What are the barriers?
“By the age of 3, a 30-million word gap exists between children from the wealthiest families and those who are economically disadvantaged,” Delaware Secretary of Education Susan Bunting said.
School leaders and the state are quick to point out some of those students suffer undiagnosed physical, emotional, or learning challenges, live in unstable situations, are often absent, and may not benefit from after-school or summer learning experiences that enrich the lives of peers.
Yvette Davenport, a literacy coach at Booker T. Washington Elementary School in Dover, said it's not all the parents' fault.
Think back 30 years. Many kindergarten classes emphasized socialization and learning through structured play, versus heavy academics.
Today, children are expected to do more than ever before by age 5 or 6.
"A lot of parents don't realize the amount of work we do in kindergarten," Davenport said. "It's different than it was when they went to school."
Some people refer to kindergarten as "the new first grade," and a study by researchers at the University of Virginia says in many ways it is.
There's a much heavier focus on reading and math, while time spent on things like art and playtime have decreased.
Teachers in 2010 were about 33 percent more likely than teachers in 1998 to say kids should start kindergarten already prepared with two of the basics: their ABCs, and how to properly handle a pencil, according to the study.
In 1998, 31 percent of teachers said by the time a child leaves kindergarten, they should know how to read. In 2010, that figure had increased to 80 percent.
That's a significant change, and some parents haven't caught up.
Higher standards aren't necessarily a bad thing but do mean kids may need to go to preschool or start learning to read at home if they want to start out on the right foot.
Davenport suggested holding workshops for parents to make sure they know expectations, but did acknowledge the fact some families have a hard time affording preschool or early learning.
Kids from families with a stay-at-home mom or dad are often the furthest behind, Davenport said, because those children usually don't go to preschool.
Stacey Treut, a literacy coach at New Castle Elementary School, where Bowers goes, said students can't really be expected to know how to read before kindergarten.
"Learning to read is very complex," she said. "If your brain is not ready when you are at the very beginning stages of kindergarten, then you're not ready to put those letters and sounds together.
She and Payne-Miller, the student adviser, dispelled the idea that it's only low-income students that struggle or that some students don't know how to read simply because their parents didn't expose them to enough words before kindergarten.
They see kids from just about every kind of socio-economic background struggle.
That's one of the reasons the Colonial School District partners with Reading Assist, which provides tutors through AmeriCorps, a service agency that uses federal grant money to place volunteers in programs that meet the goal of "helping others and meeting critical needs in the community."
Reading Assist Intervention Corps members spend 45 minutes a day, five days a week with students like Bowers teaching the “mechanics of reading" to children who struggle to connect letters and their related sounds, impairing their ability to "decode” words and read fluently.
Reading difficulties affect about 20 percent of all students in any classroom and severely impact about 5 percent, according to Reading Assist.
"There's just too many children and not enough hands to do all the work," said Kim Phillips, director of professional development for Reading Assist.
Treut said the Colonial School District is fortunate to have two reading specialists in every school as well as reading coaches, but that even with those support staff it's hard to spend time with kids one on one.
"It probably could be done in the school system, but something else would have to be sacrificed," Payne-Miller said.
Ultimately it comes down to money and staffing, which thanks to state budget woes, are in short supply.
"With the number of students that need this type of intervention, you'd never be able to do it with the existing school staff," said Innes, the program's director.
What is the solution?
Reading Assist's Reading Corps program, which has been piloted for two years in the Colonial School District, was recently accredited, and the nonprofit now hopes to roll it out to students all over Delaware.
But experts say targeted interventions are only one piece of the puzzle.
Delaware's Campaign for Grade-Level Reading will focus on five areas, United Way's Taylor said, which she thinks can change the trajectory for Delaware's kids:
- Increasing the number of early screenings to detect physical, emotional, and/or learning barriers in children.
- Improving academic achievement.
- Reducing chronic student absenteeism.
- Reducing summer learning loss.
- Increasing the number of degreed professionals in the early childhood workforce.
None of these areas of focus are particularly new. The state and various nonprofits have been targeting them for years.
Taylor thinks that by creating a statewide coalition, the campaign will be able to effect widespread change. Too many groups and state agencies use the "spray and pray" model, she said, throwing resources at the community in hopes of creating positive outcomes.
Often, they see limited success or are only able to turn things around in small pockets of Delaware, Taylor said. There is little discussion about how to replicate successful programs or how to reallocate resources so they have broader impact.
"It's fragmented," Taylor said. "And it doesn't work."
Taylor says the campaign will hold regular meetings to discuss a more coordinated approach. Topics could include expanding after-school and summer programming by the Boys & Girls Club of Delaware and the Summer Learning Collaborative statewide or holding kindergarten sign-ups at local churches and nonprofits.
"Sometimes kids don't sign up for kindergarten on time so they start school late," Taylor said.
She also talked about the importance of meeting families' basic needs so that they can focus more attention on their children's education.
Expanding the reach of Delaware 2-1-1 – a free, confidential referral and information helpline and website that connects people from all communities and of all ages to essential health and human services – could be one solution.
"You've got to deal with the basic needs stuff first," Taylor said.
The State Board of Education will be part of the new coalition and launched its own literacy campaign in 2014.
Reading proficiency rates have not significantly increased since then, according to The Nation's Report Card.
One of the group's main areas of focus was launching the Delaware Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, which with the help of United Way it has now accomplished.
It has also worked to bolster teacher prep programs and licensing requirements so educators are specifically trained in the science of teaching reading. Another area of focus is early learning centers, which have taken on an increasingly important role in preparing kids for kindergarten.
Still, according to Delaware's fall 2016 Early Learner Survey, only 67 percent of all incoming kindergartners could recognize and name as many as 10 letters. Only 54 percent could follow multi-step directions and use long sentences to describe things.
Only 43 percent of kindergartners could count to 20.
Dennis Loftus, president of the State Board, said despite Head Start grants, stricter licensing requirements and incentive programs like Delaware Stars for Early Success, there are still too many facilities that act as little more than babysitting services.
One of the challenges, he said, is that it takes money for people to get degrees and learn how to teach kids basic literacy skills.
Not everyone comes into the field with that knowledge.
The case for early learning is rooted in research that suggests much of the human brain develops before kids are old enough to enter kindergarten. Delaware has poured millions of dollars over the past few years into getting more kids, especially those from at-risk families, into good early learning centers, and this year received a $7.65 million grant to aid those efforts.
Currently, about 59 percent of low-income early learners are enrolled in high-quality early learning programs, according to the Delaware Early Childhood Council. That's up from 5 percent in 2011.
Delaware has 67,700 children birth to five years old total, and 42 percent of those are considered at risk of falling behind in school because of their socioeconomic status.
“Delaware is committed to aligning birth to grade 3 services throughout the state to benefit children now and for the long term," Bunting, the education secretary said. "We know that building a solid foundation for language and literacy in the early years highly contributes to success throughout life.”
Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies. Looking for more education news? Visit delawareonline.com/education.
Imagine Delaware Literacy Festival
On Nov 4, The News Journal and Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children will hold an Imagine Delaware Literacy Festival to encourage families helping their children learn to read.
Nemours believes that the sooner kids can learn to read and the better they learn to read, the more rewarding their lives will be. And because schools want kids coming in who are reading-ready, there is alotfamilies can do at home to get them that way.
The event will run 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at John Dickinson High School, 1801 Milltown Road, Wilmington, as part of the 11th annual Red Clay Family Resource Fair.
The Literacy Festival will be located in the school cafeteria, which will be toleft as you enter the school’s lobby.
Vendors in the Literacy Festival and through the resource fair will offer information and specialists who can discuss reading issues, ranging from ways parents can start to involve their children when they are just babies all the way to problems that children may be experiencing in school.
Among the vendors at the fair will be the Nemours Bright Start program, which will offer families a quiz they can take on a computer and print out results for families to take home; Vision to Learn, a nonprofit that testschildrens’ eyes on site and gives them glasses, all for free; and the Delaware Reading Readiness team, a group of early childhood specialists, school staff and teachers, parents and early learning providers who will offer books, sample literacy activities and more.
In addition, authors and community leaders will read books or book chapters and talk a bit about why they like reading and what they like.
A balloon artist will wander through and offer children take-home animals. He will also juggle.
Find out more and get tickets to the free event at https://tickets.delawareonline.com/e/imagine-delaware-literacy-festival/tickets.