Study: Third Grade Reading Level Indicates Student's Chances Of Graduating High School

A new study reveals that the level of reading skills children develop by third grade may indicate their likelihood of graduating high school.

Released by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the report found that students who don't read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma when compared to proficient readers. The number rises when those kids also come from poverty.

Donald J. Hernandez, the study's author, said third grade is a pivot point, reports Education Week:

"We teach reading for the first three grades and then after that children are not so much learning to read but using their reading skills to learn other topics. In that sense if you haven't succeeded by 3rd grade it's more difficult to [remediate] than it would have been if you started before then."

According to the report, 6.2 million young people dropped out of school in 2007. To turn the tide, educators, politicians and researchers are looking for ways to prevent dropouts from leaving school.

With the report's findings, increased efforts to help the nation's youngest pupils master reading may be one way to reduce dropouts.

Read the full report.

Comments

[Jennifer Kobrin]

11:04 AM on 04/28/2011

Our non-profit has been working with the Casey Foundation over the past several years to help create individual reading success plans for striving readers in several urban school districts around the country. We recently published a report with specific recommendations based on our learnings from this experience. Visit our blog at languageandliteracy.org to download the report.

[JustAWiseCrackingGuy]

10:09 AM on 04/13/2011

This is hardly new information. I work with dyslexic students, and have seen what happens when children don't know how to read- they're simply allowed to flounder, and are branded as stupid. Since reading instruction basically stops after third grade, most schools can claim ignorance on the issue. Of course, that many states already project prison populations based on elementary school reading scores demonstrates just how well this correlation was alreay understood.

[Jo-Anne Gross]

10:13 PM on 04/11/2011

I couldn`t resist adding one more-

Dear Dr. Rose:

I was pleased to see your revelation of the fact that most young children in the U.S. are denied an effective manner in which to develop their reading abilities. This practice is so notorious that I call it a form of academic child abuse.

Your comments also lead me to the conclusion that the public needs to be informed that professors of reading education are the major cause of the failure of American children to read competently. I hope in the future that you will add that truism to your other pertinent remarks.

Patrick Groff

Professor at University of San Diego -Wrote 325 books-

[saaba]

10:21 PM on 04/12/2011

in what way are they the cause of reading failure? Any links?

[Jo-Anne Gross]

10:39 PM on 04/12/2011

www.childrenofthecode.org

[DriversLicense]

08:27 PM on 04/11/2011

"Increased efforts to help the nation's youngest pupils master reading may be one way to reduce dropouts." Research has shown that intensive interventions in first grade can remediate many reading deficiencies. Unfortunately, in my state, we have legislators who do not understand the importance of early childhood education and the struggles of beginning readers. They would rather wait until a child has struggled for years and then require intensive reading.

[cijeho]

04:01 PM on 04/11/2011

"Graduating High School" is not proper English. It is "graduating FROM High School". Ironic?

[SF TKF]

05:41 PM on 04/12/2011

You are mistaken.

[umbrarchist]

02:37 PM on 04/11/2011

That may be true but it does not mean that most high school graduates are very impressive. We have Harvard graduates that can't explain winter and summer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg

So if we want to educate and cut costs why not combine cheap von Neumann machines (known to some people as computers) with free readable science fiction with GOOD SCIENCE?

All Day September, by Roger Kuykendall
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24161/24161-h/24161-h.htm

A science fiction story from 1959 about finding water on the Moon when NASA just did it in 2009. But we still don't have Moon bases. The future ain't what it used to be. If we don't teach kids science it will just get worse.

[sawyer0413]

12:31 PM on 04/11/2011

Research, like this, is valuable, but it often gets grossly distorted in its interpretation in the public. Statistical observations in the data point to the expected distribution of a group. It does not point to individuals, and it certainly is not a fait accompli. Just because this has been the way the data points, it doesn't have to be this way. These statistics do not point to immutable laws of physics over which we have no control. I just fear that if we follow the general understanding of this, we will be discarding students as being unable to learn.

[El Chingaso]

09:50 AM on 04/11/2011

In my former career as an addiction counselor, it's amazing how many Americans I treated (ages 18-49) that could neither write a coherent sentence nor perform basic math calculations. And many of these individuals "actually" graduated from public high schools. I agree with all the press over the last 30 years that "public education is, indeed, in crisis mode." However, draining local taxpayers further will never correct these issues...

[Jo-Anne Gross]

10:05 AM on 04/11/2011

you couldn`t be more right-on both statements.

[landskroon]

05:03 AM on 04/11/2011

Come on, there are enough elderly like me that can volunteer in education. Help them, it is fun to see such children make progress. I am helping youngsters and it makes me richer than all Trumps or Boehners or Kochs ever can be. Have seen well motivated children from many countries (children of fugitives). Just go to a school and ask the teacher if you can help. There is always a corner of a classroom that can be used for it. I am now helping a girl with material above my level but, by making her explain me her books she makes great progress. And, I am having fun. Children with reading problems are reading my 60 year old children books. I tell them stories and make them tell me theirs. I ask them to send me a letter and send them an annswer. I help them growing up, they keep me young

[Hlynn]

02:24 AM on 04/11/2011

I don't see how this is a new discovery. We've known it for years. K - 2 is "learn to read" time and then it changes at 3rd grade (which is when state testing begins) to "read to learn". In our school we teach in small groups so students can get more attention, and the Title I teacher focuses on the K - 2 grades for intervention. Still there needs to be practice outside of school. We send books home with students (at their reading levels) and many still don't read. We give away books during our Book Bingo Nights, and they still don't read. We bring in librarians from public libraries to tell students and parents about reading programs and activities, but few students go to the public library--even after field trips there. Students won't learn to read well unless they practice outside of school and get encouragement to read at home. Even when we had BEAR (Be An Ethusiastic Reader) time at school--which we now seldom do in order to concentrate on getting ready for state tests--it still didn't translate to home reading. Very discouraging.

[JRNorwood]

11:35 PM on 04/10/2011

If reading proficiency in third grade really does measure if a student will drop out of High School or not, I shudder to think what this might mean for those in the middle grades who still can't read.

[Sean Taylor Teacher]

10:34 PM on 04/10/2011

Raison d'etre is French for "reason for being," and students who can’t read feel they have no reason for being in school. Students will start thinking school is a prison and will behave and act institutionalized towards teachers, peers and academics. Students get more cynical when the gold stars lose their luster, and teachers' mendacity about their performance start showing through the insight of their poor skills and inability to perform academic tasks. It’s a small death suffered every day by these students, as they see their dreams crashed on the rocks of reality. We ask students to come to school daily and give 100% to what they believe is an intolerable humiliation, and we get angry when they don’t smile and take school more seriously. We scratch our heads, wondering what we can do when half of our kids drop out of school. If students can’t read, every thing else is moot. “The great object to be accomplished in reading as a rhetorical exercise is, to convey to the hearer, fully and clearly, the ideas and feelings of the writer.” McGuffey, William Holmes

Sean Taylor M.Ed
http://reading-sage.blogspot.com

[Angie Sullivan]

10:28 PM on 04/10/2011

For years the prison system has based how many beds they will need on how many kids are able to read by 3rd grade.

I teach 1st grade. I'm scared for kids. They come to me already behind. They haven't learned simple things: how to tie shoes, how to write their name, say an address, say a phone number, how to use scissors, how to color, how to write simple sentences. They are illiterate. They are developmentally delayed already - not having been exposed to literacy. They need reading readiness activities to prepared them to read - when I should already be teaching them reading. Kindergarten is not mandatory in my state. So some kids come to my classroom because they are six and that's it.

So they are pushed, pushed, pushed to catch up. But they go 6 months to a year behind into 2nd grade especially if parents refused to retain. Then they get more and more behind as the curriculum snowballs and they are buried - not having basic skills.

There is literally not enough time to get them ready AND teach them to read. It's stressful for me and for them. But when you are competing against the rest of the United States at age 6 and compared across the nation by test score . . . you need to be in a rush or fall behind the first year.

[Hlynn]

02:11 AM on 04/11/2011

Angie, not only can students not give their own phone numbers, we had one student who wanted to call home so we said he could. He said he didn't know his phone number, so we found his student card, handed it to him, and pointed to where the number was. He looked at it and back to the phone a few time and then told us he didn't know how to call because he didn't see the dash on the phone keypad. I'm not kidding. The student was in fourth grade.

[uniquindividual]

09:40 PM on 04/10/2011

An experienced Kindergarten teacher, after the first week of school, and after meeting the parent(s) can make good predictions too.

[Jo-Anne Gross]

09:45 AM on 04/11/2011

You`re right!

[listerizermarkIII]

08:47 PM on 04/10/2011

Unfortunately, politicians and "experts" don't seem to get it. No amount of studying, remediation, or any kind of "at-risk" program will solve these issues. Which were caused by two major things--self-entitled students and a lack of parental involvement or care about the students progress. I noticed these things by my 6th grade year, and before anybody says that working parents can't do it, I lived below the poverty line, had a non-existent father, and had a working mom who still managed to read to me while in between splitting wood to heat our dilapidated trailer I called home. Now, because of parental involvement, I am the smartest freshman at my school, I took the SAT in 7th grade, and have spoken at various places.

[marsjunkiegirl]

10:01 PM on 04/10/2011

...toot one's own horn much? Your point has some weight, but you're not going to qualify as empirical evidence of parental involvement leading to higher education until you finish college. A lot can happen between now and then, and it doesn't pay to get cocky. I've sort of learned that the hard way.
Anyway. We live in a country where there is a direct correlation between money and educational achievements. There was a study a few years ago that found that parents reading to their young children, taking them to museums, and just generally doing typical 'good parent' sort of things had no impact on SAT scores later in life. /Family income/ was found to be the only contributing factor. You're an outlier and that's great, but money procures a good education even more effectively than hard work does. Education is very much an uphill battle for many poor people.
Good luck.

[Ghoulish]

10:04 PM on 04/10/2011

I would like to see links to that study if possible. Thanks.

[Sean Taylor Teacher]

10:49 PM on 04/10/2011

Students entering school with educated parents have a 1000 word greater vocabulary than their classmates with non college educated parents. Getting an EDUCATION is the great equalizer, and we are sabotaging any chance for the poor to get an education. Thanks for the post! fanned!

[Jo-Anne Gross]

09:37 AM on 04/11/2011

I know you believe what you say but this is not true-there are many reasons a child can`t read and spell
1.Dysteachia-a flawed pedagogical program is being delivered in your school.
2.The child has weak phonemic awareness-a condition many children have when they are 2nd language learners,can`t decode,or when they stem from poverty where many times their parents are also illiterate.If you do not get bedtime stories,lots of talking and stimulation,you are likely to have this.All researchers with a conscience know this is the problem,nobody is training the teachers-a disconnect between University preparation and the classtroom.Truly tragic.
3-The child is dyslexic-however,taught properly,most kids overcome,right now we have Dyslexia warehousing,we create it.