Laura Chapman recently wrote about the policy of holding third grade students back if they didn’t pass the third grade reading test. One result of this initiative is to raise fourth-grade reading scores on state tests and NAEP.
She writes:
There is a national read-by-grade three campaign. The practice of holding students back a grade is not new, but in the olden days it was never based on test scores alone and certainly not based on scores from national tests. I am no expert in reading, but I have learned to question how questionable policies proliferate.
Right now, The Annie E, Casey Foundation is a source of the national “Read by Grade 3” campaign. It is financed by about thirty other foundations and corporations. You can read about the investors here: http://gradelevelreading.net/about-us/campaign-investors
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is also the source of widely cited and dubious research about reading. For example, the Foundation sponsored “Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation (2010, updated 2012)” by Dr. Donald J. Hernandez, sociologist at Hunter College (more recently at the University of Albany, State University of New York). I find no evidence that this study was peer-reviewed. https://www.aecf.org/resources/double-jeopardy/
In this study, the rates of failure in grade three reading were based on scores from the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) Reading Recognition subtest. This test has 84 items said to increase in difficulty from preschool to high school. It is an oral reading test that includes items such as matching letters, naming names, and reading single words aloud.
To quote directly from the PIAT manual, the rationale for the reading recognition subtest is as follows: “In a technical sense, after the first 18 readiness-type items, the general objective of the reading recognition subtest is to measure skills in translating sequences of printed alphabetic symbols which form words, into speech sounds that can be understood by others as words. https://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy79-children/topical-guide/assessments/piat-reading-reading-recognitionreading
The author of Double Jeopardy then invented a way to treat scores on this oral test of reading “readiness” as if comparable NAEP scores for proficiency. But, NAEP reading tests are not administered until grade four! Moreover, according to NAEP, “Fourth grade students performing at the Proficient level should be able to integrate and interpret texts and apply their understanding of the text to draw conclusions and make evaluations.”
The author appropriated the standard for proficiency in NAEP, grade four, to make make judgments about the necessity for read-by-grade three policies based on an oral test in grade three. The study is not worthy of the publicity it has received.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation also financed a related study by Lesnick, J., Goerge, R., Smithgall, C., & Gwynne J. (2010). Reading on Grade Level in Third Grade: How Is It Related to High School Performance and College Enrollment? The executive summary, page 1 states: The results of this study do not examine whether low reading performance causes low future educational performance, or whether improving a child’s reading trajectory has an effect on future educational outcomes.”
So what was the take-away from this study?
The major conclusion, executive summary, page 4 is: “Students who are better prepared for a successful ninth grade year are more likely to have positive future outcomes, regardless of third grade reading status. The sooner that struggling readers are targeted for supports, the easier it will be to ensure that students are progressing on course toward strong performance in ninth grade, high school graduation, and college enrollment. NOTHING SUPPORTS GRADE THREE AS THE MAKE OR BREAK YEAR. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED517805
I looked at “Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children” published in 1998 by the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council. The brief discussion of grade retention on 280-281 did not support the practice of grade retention. It also noted that grade retention policies differed in several ways. Simply repeating the same grade is not the same as repeating the grade with substantial and well-placed help. There is a single reference associating grade retention based on poor reading skill with dropping out of school. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED416465.pdf
Please look again at the Annie E. Casey Foundation sponsored “Read by Grade 3” campaign.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am not a fan of holding children back a grade, but I do see the problem with different levels of student reading ability and what this begins to do to groups of student learners along the way. As a teacher, I would like to find a good path between holding a child back at the grade where he or shee has just established a peer-group that has become important to the child’s education and placing the child who does not read well in a position to look around himself and realize he is lacking something.
What are we to do?
“What are we to do?”
Provide the necessary resources, in this case certified and qualified adults in every classroom throughout the K-12 realm that allows for more individualized instruction to take place so that each child can progress in the fashion that works for them. We come nowhere near doing that now. Too much spent on the standards and testing malpractice regime and not enough on staff that is focused on the individual student that needs help.
I’ve seen what having enough staff can do for children who learn differently and at a different pace than the norm from having seen it in action over the time my children went through grade and middle school. I worked with many of those students who were on the sports teams I coached and/or in scouts. By working with the special needs students in the classroom of peers, the benefit accrued not only to the special needs students but also to other students who learned how to interact and be friends with the “other” student.
Roy,
From a parents’ perspective – one of the things that I thought was a positive change from when I was in the “learn to read” grades was that my kids’ classroom followed the “Level books” approach.
Don’t get me wrong – there were huge problems with the way that was done and teachers seeming to be clueless about how to think about which books kids should read – but I felt a lot of that was in the execution and training and inexperience of the teachers and not the idea behind it. I still remember being a young student and the agony of sitting through what seemed like endless hours of listening to other students slowly reading aloud every word in a Dick, Jane and Spot story. (It probably wasn’t that long, but seemed that way to a 6 year old fighting to stay awake and I was much less engaged in school those years). Or getting my Scott Foresman Reader at the beginning of the year and reading through all the stories at home the first week. (I particularly loved “Ventures” and “Vistas” and I wish I had a copy to see if all those stories held up.)
If there was a way to use the “just right book” method without levels so that students were less aware of what books other students were reading, it would be an improvement. But this system did address the issue that in those early years, students are at different reading levels, which has nothing to do with where they end up in 3rd or 4th grade, when a late reader might excel and an early reader might be right at grade level.
^^^sorry, I wrote this reply before I saw that wonderful post by Diane Ravitch about the “science of reading”. That brilliant post and the discussion had many excellent and much better comments on the subject than this one – apologies!)
Yes, using leveled readers is foundational to most elementary classrooms that I am familiar with – but it is only part of a rich literacy block that includes other components as well.
The issue of children comparing themselves to others is complex and hard to avoid when you match children with right fit books while using leveled readers. Children will naturally notice and compare themselves to their peers. They will notice that they cannot read a difficult text that a peer can read no matter how skillful a teacher is in implementation. It’s a balancing act and an art to create the right environment for this to happen. One way is to allow children to pick out some of their own books and not worry that they spend a little time trying (or pretending to try) to read a book that is a little hard. Another is to present varying levels of readers with a slightly lower level of book, to practice a comprehension strategy – so that students reading at a lower level see that their peers are reading the same book.
I am sorry you had a bad experience with a teacher who was not skilled in matching the right text to a child’s reading level. It is not an exact science and very time consuming to differentiate with so many book titles and options. Young children ‘gobble up’ books and it’s a complex process to keep new books in their hands that they engage with. I do have to speak up and say calling elementary school teachers “clueless” about matching texts to readers, feeds into the narrative that we are continually battling.
Leveled books are over blown. Let kids choose books they want to read.
The original intent of leveled books is that kids need to be able to read the books they choose. This depends on their interest and prior knowledge. My son could read a book on alligators because of his interest and background knowledge.
We now test and force a child to read certain levels.
beachteach,
Yes I’m very sorry about using “clueless”. In another post I explained that my kid had wonderful, very experienced teachers who knew how to teach reading with skill and understanding, but also that some (often young and inexperienced) teachers treated the “book levels” system in a robotic way and it served to turn kids off of reading instead of engaging them. I’m all for skilled, experienced, thoughtful teachers who understand that no one way fits all students!
Leveled reading books are just that – books. They are an excellent tool to get books in students hands without frustrating beginning readers, and can support growth and enjoyment of reading. It’s not a reading “program” per se. There are terrific publishing companies, like Pioneer Valley, that publish wonderful books for students to enjoy. Knowing the complexity of a text can support differentiating instruction.
Cutting corners and using leveled texts as a ‘game’ or a test to move children up in levels – is not what leveling texts is all about – at least the original intent by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. However some online companies have used the leveling process for this purpose. And I can see how this narrow understanding would lead to someone jumping to conclusion about leveled readers.
NYC,
Thanks 😉 As a regular reader of this blog I always respect your comments. I’ve posted things quickly here too. At the moment I read your post, I felt for those beginning elementary teachers who could never be prepared enough for the enormity of the task – and are doing their best to support students as they learn to be better teachers of reading.
beachteach,
I appreciate you being so gracious about my apology! You make a great point about beginning teachers — it’s not fair to expect them to have the knowledge that years of experience brings. Like residents in medicine, they have to practice on real students/patients to get better as it’s impossible to learn it all in medical school or schools of education. (Which is the problem with TFA which seemed like a reasonable idea to me until I realized it meant so many new teachers who were short timers replaced by other new teachers who were short timers and very few ever had the chance to learn how to be a good teacher!) With teaching – as with medicine – enthusiasm is a terrific quality to have, but enthusiasm without knowledge is not. Especially when that enthusiastic newcomer has no idea what he doesn’t know but instead is convinced he knows it all because the ed reformers told him he does.
I’m surprised there isn’t a group of “med reformers” trying to cut costs in health care.
“Med reformers” would train recent college grads to be doctors in 6 weeks. They would practice in special “charter” hospitals where they treated patients based on their 6 weeks of training, and any patient who didn’t get better was told it was their fault and would be asked to leave the hospital. Then the billionaire funders who supported the “med reformers” would subsidize scholars who did “studies” that showed that the patients taught by these new, enthusiastic doctors did better than they did in hospitals that had doctors who went through years of training and licensing. They would “prove” that “99%” of the patients could be treated in 10 minutes and get better and those experienced doctors were wasting so much time and money because some of their patients weren’t getting better even though they were spending days and even weeks or months dealing with their illnesses. (No mention those illnesses being treated was cancer and not strep throat, because the scholar shills for the med reformers believed that was irrelevant information, as was any mention of the “disappearing” patients).
Of course, when it came to their own family, the billionaires who supported the med reformer movement insisted on highly trained doctors with lots of time to focus on each patient.
NYC: Excellent analogy to TFA and teacher training and MFA (Medicine for America ;-). Loved it.
My middle son—the only one who became a voracious reader—must have had something like “leveled books”? But there was no testing involved [‘mid-‘90’s]. His 1st-gr teacher was a near-retirement veteran. I saw their reading class: there was a long table w/ wire-mesh baskets of books the length of it & kids seated on both sides reading at will– except the teacher intervened & checked them over, deciding when they could proceed to the next basket. The wire-mesh was good: kids could see what was on hand at the next level & wanted to get there.
I have taught long enough to know that NOT ALL CHILDREN are FLUENT readers in grade 3.
To retain them is stupid and harmful.
As someone that has taught ELLs, I have taught students to read in English at all grade levels, even when they did not read in their home language. I have seen slow starters take off in middle school and graduate from high school with honors.
Educators should be wary about position papers on educational issues from foundations or think tanks. They should also be wary about conclusions they draw. Conflating the PIAT with the NAEP in different grades levels is a perfect example. The PIAT, a test which I was trained to give when I became a certified reading teacher, is a phonics test. Students sound out a series of words that get progressively more difficult. There is no meaning involved in this test. Students simply decode the words in a list. The NAEP is a challenging comprehension test. Comparing the two tests is an apples to oranges scenario.
Retention in third grade is another harmful policy as retained students are far more likely to drop out. Instead of retaining students, these students should be candidates for reading intervention services first from reading teacher. If that fails, a student, may need the services of a learning disabilities teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham or Fernald, both are multi-sensory approaches to learning to read. With budget problems facing so many states, some school districts are eliminating teachers that help learning disabled students. This is unfortunate since many learning disabled students with compensatory support are now attending and graduating from college. One trend I have noticed in Florida is districts creating their own charter schools for special education. I think this is being done to save money and perhaps to circumvent the draconian the third grade retention policy of the state.
Retired teacher,
O-G and wilson have been around for over 100 years. They are not the answer.
Best way to create life long readers is to get rid of all of the harmful mandates, stop forcing kids to read before they are ready, let them play, and let them be active in their learning. Professionals can no longer use best practice as they are being forced to teach to programs and not to students.
Harmful mandates and competency based education are to blame for pushing down the curricula on those that are not developmentally ready for formal education. These practices also result in an over identification of “problem readers.” Young students do not need a testing yoke looming over them. They need to be free to explore and play. Fewer students would be identified as having reading problems if we eliminated high stakes testing or at the very least did not start standardized testing until third grade.
well said
They are not the answer to what? If you mean there is no one size fits all way of teaching reading, I agree, but O-G and Wilson can be highly effective with severe dyslexics with the caveat that they be part of a reading program and not THE reading program. I think of one of my middle school students who was severely dyslexic. His mother came to me and asked if I could do Wilson in school. He had been in the program privately for years. I encouraged her to continue the private services but that he needed to participate in the language arts curriculum that everyone else experienced (through my small group special ed class). We read all the literature that the mainstream kids did and had many rich, grade level appropriate discussions that teaching Wilson would have deprived him of. I still have a wonderful poem he wrote (and rewrote) called I Hate Homework. He was a musician and we used a beat on the desktops to get the rhythm right.
Children who need Orton-Gillingham and Wilson should get it.
Reformer Education Strategies
Hold them back in third
To raise the scores in fourth
Hold them back in seventh
To raise the scores in eighth
Hold them back in twelfth
To raise the scores in life
There is no such thing as reading ability. I had kids working on various behaviors in my classroom and they were all reading different books. I was lucky that I didn’t have to use a program but instead researched and implemented best practice.
More importantly, learners were engaged as they were internally motivated as they understood the importance of being able to read.
Here is my interview on the harm of 3rd grade reading laws.
https://thericksmithshow.podbean.com/mobile/e/stefanie-rysdahl-fuhr-ed-blogger-badassteachersa/?fbclid=IwAR2lTg9EY7k-acL-4GuMYK__rVjQTjSOTycvCpT_LjHRK_TfAKoRUHM7T8M
If corporations, foundations, legislators, and others can’t attack schools and teachers one way then they will search for another way regardless of the damage done to the students.
Will we ever get off this ever turning wheel of outsiders telling educational professionals how to do their work. Probably not!
and most problematic: endless invasions when the production is not broken
Retired teacher,
O-G and wilson have been around for over 100 years. They are not the answer.
Best way to create life long readers is to get rid of all of the harmful mandates, stop forcing kids to read before they are ready, let them play, and let them be active in their learning. Professionals can no longer use best practice as they are being forced to teach to programs and not to students.
How about an end poverty campaign because it is the most reliable predictor of reading achievement and future health outcomes, and academic employment success.
Now you are on to something very important, but it is exactly the message politicians do not care to hear.
Speaking in generalities, these are my views:
Some or most Republicans like to villafy poor people by calling them freeloaders etc. linking them to Democrats. ☹️
Some or most Democrats aren’t doing much as they could for poor people, because they want to control them and have them as reliable party voters. ☹️
As a Black Chicago west sider, I observed both political parties, so I know. 😐
While not doing much poor people, doing more for campaign contributors, and abandoning working people, mainstream Democrats managed to alienate far too many people, open themselves up to being labels at the the party of “Them”. Time to turn that round by organizing.
Yes indeed, Arthur. ☹️
No doubt having the stability that is provided when survival is not the top priority is of paramount importance, but it will take time. Even the most motivated of immigrants may take a generation or two to create a middle class lifestyle. I know I’m not saying anything that is not already obvious, but having taught immigrant, minority, and children of generational poverty as well as children from privileged backgrounds I know that the need for special education services may differ somewhat across populations, but it does not disappear. Eliminating the range of problems associated with poverty would definitely make teaching (and learning) easier, though.
Some children are not fully potty trained until the age of 3. I believe we should intervene and start putting them on the potty every hour on the hour starting at 6 months so that more children are trained before the age of 2. And if it doesn’t work blame the parent or nanny and hold the child back from doing all the other joyful things that they can experience as a 3 year old until they complete this milestone.
** I do value early intervention and literacy instruction…. it’s a matter of in what way and how are we intervening – that best supports growth, development and a love of reading and learning. And also what resources and training are professionals given to do it right.
My mother used to telll me that exact method was used on her [in the early ’30’s], which resulted in her having serious lifelong constipation issues.
Travis Alvarez et al, Neuroscience & Behavioral Reviews, September 2018:
“Based upon the accumulated findings, we concluded that there is compelling evidence linking individual differences in cerebellar structure and function with individual differences in reading ability.”
D Riva et al, Consensus Paper, Feb 2014 Cerebellum:: The Cerebellum’s role in Movement and Cognition.
“These connections seem to be complete around the age of 9 years but appear to be partially operative even before”
Holding a student back because they are not yet reading well in third grade appears to go against the latest science. As a student;s brain develops–in the absence of injury–he/she will naturally begin to read, soon catching up to more genetically advanced peers.
This post has nothing to do with reading as a science. It has everything to do with needing the child’s brain to be functionally ready to understand-learn whatever method of reading is used.
I expect in the main that is true, however that did not work for my 2 sibs who inherited our dad’s profound dyslexia. Serious intervention/ support was required. And that dysfunction affects some 1 in 5 kids [tho not necessarily to the same degree].
Usually, held back students are students who never or rarely attend school and/or never or rarely do homework. ☹️
Let’s face reality. A student who never or rarely attends school is missing out on lectures, in class exercises, group projects and tests. Those items can never be made up. ☹️
Let’s face reality again. A student who never or rarely does homework has almost nothing to be graded on or receive feedback, considering homework is usually typed or written. 😐
I was a middle school teacher [8th grade] for 27 years. The school system I worked for used “social promotion” to keep non-readers who did not qualify for Special Education Services in their “Peer Group”. However, I taught Social Studies and by 8th grade the class required a considerable amount of reading. I had the freedom to select the texts we used and I made sure that the reading level for an 8th grade class was at grade 6!
There were 13 year old students who were over two years behind in their reading level. Many of these tried to compensate for their being unable or unwilling to read the required reading by misbehavior and disruptive acts in class. This had the effect of denying students who were prepared for the day’s lesson of their right to a full education.
Many of my fellow middle school teachers plead every year for there to be remedial programs in the upper elementary schools that could hold these students back until they mastered the necessary skills in reading and math to have a chance of succeeding in middle and high school. Many of these students continued on getting failing grades for four more years in the high school only to discover that they did not have the credits to graduate with their peers. Then their parents would go to the School Board and plead for the School Board to create an Attendance Diploma so their child could graduate with their class.
The advocates of social promotion claimed that the “research” supported this because as they got older the student’s self esteem would suffer and they would begin to view themselves as “losers.” They never sited research that showed that social promotion actually gave these students eventual success.
I hated the fact that social promotion put unprepared and thus disruptive students in my class room. Professional educators who have had experience with 12 – 14 year-olds know that these are some of the most difficult years in a child’s education. Having to deal with socially promoted disruptive students only made that difficult job far more difficult.
There needs to be some way for early intervention and remedial learning in the elementary grades. If a third grade student is already reading only at a first grade level [Look, Look, Look, see Spot Run!] they need remedial classes. The teachers at that level are trained to teach reading, I had a masters in history and had no training in how to teach reading to a student who was often reading on a second or third grade level. At the same time my smallest classes were usually over 30 students. I was so busy with the students who were prepared to do the work I didn’t have time to learn to teach remedial reading.
You can bet that there are plenty of secondary teachers who are secretly saying “it’s about time” for requiring students entering the fourth grade to read at or near the 3rd grade level. The old social promotion idea just set kids up for failure as they got older.
If you have a better suggestion I’m willing to hear it, but going back to straight social promotion will not work. What is really needed is far higher levels of funding, much smaller classes, more teacher preparation time and finally treating the classroom teacher and paying them as the professionals they are. Until that happens all the educational reforms coming out of the Schools of Education or from the State Legislatures is just putting a Band-Aid on a cut that has become gangrenous.
Oh man, you are so RIGHT ON! Back in early ’60’s. my mother begged the school to hold my bro back & let him repeat 3rd grade over reading issues. We realized long later, he & another sib had inherited my dad’s profound dyslexia, but there was no name for it then. He ended up having to repeat 9th gr, & never could graduate hisch. My sis w/ same issue was 7 yrs younger– pegged in 7th-gr & provided intense SpEd support, she went on to college. State hold-back law on 3rd-gr is excessive, since it’s based on half-assed stdzd tests that can’t distinguish a kid who needs intensive reading help from one who is still maturing. But teachers know, & reading specialists need to be brought in early on.
Thank you for your compliment. I suffered from dyslexia as a child in the 50s. Rote memory was impossible, spelling was a disaster, all the arithmetic tables were nearly impossible. Fortunately I developed ways to get around or compensate for the problems. I read slowly, but I don’t forget what I read. I understood “set theory of learning arithmetic and higher math long before it was “discovered”. I loved teaching and especially helping kids I could clearly see were suffering from dyslexia, which didn’t have a name in the late 60s & 70s, I do have a WordPress blog but it usually about history and politics and my post can be infrequent. The blog is Utterances from the Whirlpool
Thanks for that background. Agree completely w/your latest blog entry, & bonus, it pointed me to an 11/15 post here I’d missed. My bro, like many dyslexics, had advanced spatial/ hands-on talent: by 14 he had taken over my old playhouse, put in electric & running water [!], needless to say he was already working gainfully while failing out of hs, had successful career. He became a voracious reader by his late ‘20’s via no TV in house (ever) & daily ‘workout.’ He told me it was like a muscle & if he ever laid off it for a month or two, letters once again swum on the page. Sis, gifted w/disturbed & delinquent kids, became midsch SpEd teacher, then head of dept, is now in hisch admin. Tells me she still would never be one to proofread a page of text. From her I learned it wasn’t just b’s mixed up w/d’s: they also looked like p’s & q’s!
There is an elephant in the reading room. Screening for dyslexia and intervention programs are deemed to be too expensive yet we have wasted billions on useless reading tests. Teachers receive little to no training for recognizing the signs and parents of dyslexic children are on their own. This should be a national scandal.
Great moniker! Some states are setting caps on the number of classified students to save money, even though roughly 10% of students are learning disabled.
There is an elephant in the reading room. Screening for dyslexia and intervention programs are deemed to be too expensive yet we have wasted billions on useless reading tests. Teachers receive little to no training for recognizing the signs and parents of dyslexic children are on their own. This should be a national scandal.
Something else that I’ve observed with my 4th grade students (I’m a teacher’s aide in a high needs school). These kids aren’t getting the support they need because their parents will not have their child evaluated for supports, IEP, etc. They don’t want the kids “labeled” with anything and then the child can’t get the extra support and interventions to which they are entitled. They have some idea that their children will just magically catch up, and it’s a total uphill battle.
Did the Double Jeopardy report, or the website for the group suggest that retention in grade is a method of remediation for reading problems? I understand that states do this…and that it’s an easy (though wrongheaded and expensive) method of dealing with the problem, but I couldn’t find any discussion of grade retention in either location.