Ready For Reading

FOCUS

Ready for reading

By Sharon Roberts

Categories: College- and career-ready standards, Continuous improvement, Evaluation & impact, Instructional materials/curriculum, Learning designs, Outcomes

Vol 41, No. 2

Across the U.S., educators face a common challenge: How can we help all students become strong readers and writers? The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also called the Nation’s Report Card, showed that there is no state where the majority of 4th grade students are proficient in reading, and only eight jurisdictions have at least 40% of students reaching proficiency (The Nation’s Report Card, 2019a). In my state of Tennessee, many educators believe we have a reading crisis. Two-thirds of 3rd graders do not read and write on grade level as measured by our statewide assessment (Tennessee Department of Education, 2019a). That figure is in line with the NAEP results showing that only 35% of our 4th graders are proficient in reading, a

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Authors

Sharon Roberts

Sharon Roberts (sharon@tnscore.org) is chief K-12 impact officer at the State Collaborative on Reforming Education in Tennessee.

Resource from LIFT

The LIFT Network website (lifteducationtn.com) includes materials to help educators further early literacy work in their schools and districts.

REPORTS

The Science of Reading: This report lays out misconceptions about reading instruction, shares critical research headlines to inform decisions, and offers suggestions to end the reading crisis.
Annual reports: Three reports summarize the results and lessons learned from the LIFT literacy projects.

TOOLS AND RESOURCES

Instructional Materials Implementation Guidebook.
Instructional Practice Guide: K-5 Literacy.
Text Quality Criteria and Text Complexity Qualitative Measures Rubrics for fiction and nonfiction texts.

References

LIFT Education. (2017, September). Early literacy implementation work (Annual Report). https://lifteducationtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/LIFT-Education-Annual-Report-2017_FINAL.pdf

LIFT Education. (2018, September). Going deeper with early literacy implementation (Annual Report). https://lifteducationtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/180911-Annual-Report-Draft_FINAL.pdf

LIFT Education. (2019, October). Sustaining our progress in early literacy (Annual Report). https://lifteducationtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-TN-LIFT-Annual-Report.pdf

The Nation’s Report Card. (2019a). Data tools: State profiles: National Assessment of Educational Progress, grade 4 reading, Tennessee. Author’s calculations. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/TN?cti=PgTab_OT&chort=1&sub=RED&sj=TN&fs=Grade&st=MN&year=2019R3&sg=Gender%3A+Male+vs.+Female&sgv=Difference&ts=Single+Year&tss=2015R3-2019R3&sfj=NP

The Nation’s Report Card. (2019b). Data tools: State profiles: National Assessment of Educational Progress, grade 4 reading. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?chort=1&sub=RED&sj=AL&sfj=NP&st=MN&year=2019R3

SCORE. (2020a). Expanding Student Success: 2020 State of Education in Tennessee, 28-30. https://tnscore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2020-State-Of-Education-report_FINAL_DIGITAL_v1.1.pdf
SCORE. (2020b, Winter). The Science of Reading. https://lifteducationtn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Science-of-Reading-2019.pdf

SCORE. (2020c). Urgency for Literacy: How Tennessee Can Deliver Student Reading Success, 8-9. https://tnscore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/UrgencyForLiteracy_3-2020_DIGITAL_FINAL.pdf
Tennessee Department of Education. (2019a). Data downloads & requests: State assessments: Assessment files: 2019. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/accountability/2019/state_assessment_file_suppressed.csv

Tennessee Department of Education. (2019b). Section E adoption list 2019. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/textbook/Adoption_Section.E_2019_Final_01_30_20.pdf