‘The movement is in the right direction.’ NC seeing post-pandemic reading gains.
North Carolina elementary school students are showing reading gains that State Superintendent Catherine Truitt says are a sign that a “post-pandemic rebound” is happening.
Test results released on Thursday show a higher percentage of K-3 students were on track in reading at the start of this school year compared to the start of last school year. In addition, the data shows that nearly 28,000 more K-3 students were performing at or above benchmark levels on the assessments compared to last year.
“The movement is in the right direction,” said State Board of Education member Jill Camnitz. “It’s so exciting.”
The results offer positive news after test scores and grades dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, North Carolina students performed the worst they’ve done in more than 20 years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, exams in reading and math.
Gains in all grade levels
As part of the state’s Read To Achieve program, elementary schools use Amplify’s mClass program to assess literacy skills of K-3 students at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.
The data showed higher percentages of students in each grade, kindergarten through third, were performing at or above the benchmark score at the start of this school year compared to the same time last year. For instance, 48% of first-grade students were on track in reading at the start of this school year compared to 38% last year.
The percentage of kindergarten, second-grade and third-grade students who started the school year on track in reading was higher nationally than in North Carolina. But Truitt said the state’s gains in several grade levels this year was higher than the nation’s increases.
Of the 454,028 K-3 students who were tested at the beginning of this school year, 27,970 more were on track compared to last year. In addition, 28,139 fewer students were off track at the start of the school year.
White, black and Hispanic student groups all began the year ahead of similar student groups in the same grades during the 2021-22 school year.
In addition, 5,000 fewer fourth-grade students entered the school year with a “retained” label on their records showing they were behind in their literacy skills. Truitt predicted this will be reflected in the future in higher fourth-grade scores on the NAEP exams.
“Our students are doing better,” Truitt said. “They’re doing much better. We still have more work to do.”
LETRS training
Truitt credited this school year’s gains in part to the new LETRS science of reading training. LETRS, which stands for “Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling,” stresses phonics when teaching students how to read.
The state’s 44,000 elementary teachers have to complete the 160 hours of training by 2024. She said the LETRS training begun last school year is already providing more effective instruction that will increase in time as teachers finish the training.
“All credit goes to our teachers for our incredible gains,” Truitt said. “I can’t wait to see what our middle of year data shows.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 4:10 PM with the headline "‘The movement is in the right direction.’ NC seeing post-pandemic reading gains.."
