OPINION - Guest writer

Closing the books?

Kids deserve to be able to read

Sixty-nine percent of our third-graders cannot read on grade level.

Let me give you a moment to let this sink in. Put another way, only 31 percent of our third-graders are reading at grade level, according to the Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading's (AR-GLR) "Full Speed Ahead: Moving the Needle on Grade-Level Reading in Arkansas" report.

Is this acceptable? Why aren't we taking action? Imagine seven out of 10 kids showing up to school without shoes. That's what we're looking at, except it's basic literacy skills, not shoes, they're showing up without.

It is crucial that our kids learn to read by third grade. Learning to read is the most essential and fundamental skill for academic achievement and future success. When your child's teacher asks the students in his or her third-grade class to read Stellaluna, is your child one of the seven who cannot read the book?

We often quibble over the validity of the 69 percent and try to trot out various tests to disprove that number or reduce it. There are three different tests the U.S. government and state use to assess reading proficiency in Arkansas. The fact is these tests lead us to the same conclusion: The majority of our students are not reading on grade level. We can argue over data, or we can get to work to prepare all of our students to read great books like Stellaluna.

Our students need to learn to read so they start reading to learn, succeed throughout school and become engineers, doctors, teachers, machinists, scientists and more.

How do we increase the number of readers in Arkansas? We can start by taking the AR-GLR pledge. Those of us who have taken the pledge are committed to achieving our shared goal that all Arkansas children will read on grade level by the end of third grade. We've heard this is a big goal, but why strive for 50 percent or 20 percent improvement? All our kids should be able to read, and we need to teach them. Achieving this ambitious goal will require families, educators, policymakers and business leaders to share our determination and serve as ambassadors, advocates and activists for our children.

In "Full Speed Ahead: Moving the Needle on Grade-Level Reading in Arkansas," AR-GLR outlines actions we must take to reach our goal that every Arkansas student reads at grade level by the end of third grade: increase family and community engagement, increase school readiness, reduce chronic absence, and provide high-quality after-school and summer learning programs.

And we have to create urgency. That's why Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Arkansas Department of Education Commissioner Johnny Key recently established the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (RISE) to share the importance of grade-level reading and related resources with parents, educators and community leaders.

Also, recent research from ForwARd Arkansas shows us our state needs to make a $20 million investment in high-quality pre-K to prepare our kids to read. That may seem like a lot, but we can choose to pay now and create a brighter future for our kids, or we can pay that much and more after they have grown up and struggle to start a career.

The seven out of 10 students who don't master reading by third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than their three proficient peers. Imagine not being able to read at age 8 . . . and then not being able to read by age 28. Imagine the embarrassment, the frustration and the despair. Being able to read is crucial for students' success in school and in life.

Did you know that 70 percent of jobs in Arkansas require a high school diploma or less and do not pay family-supporting wages, according to the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation report, "Expect More Arkansas"? While it would be tough to prove causation, it's not a leap to link the data that 69 percent of our students who do not read proficiently by the end of third grade contribute to 70 percent of the jobs in our state requiring a high school diploma or less.

The result is that Arkansas continues to be a state of working-poor families and communities.

We have to charge full speed ahead to make grade-level reading a statewide priority. Our children deserve to be able to read.

Arkansans are so generous I know we would rally if we learned that seven out of 10 of our kids came to school with no shoes. Our children need us to teach them to read, and we need to be tenacious. "Full Speed Ahead: Moving the Needle on Grade-Level Reading in Arkansas" provides solutions and strategies we must use to get 10 out of 10 of our students reading.

Arkansas, we know what to do. The question is if we want to do it.

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Sherece Y. West-Scantlebury is president and CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the mission of which is to improve the lives of all Arkansans in three interrelated areas: economic development; education; and economic, racial, and social justice.

Editorial on 05/05/2017

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