Arizona is facing a literacy crisis and it begins in early childhood.
We are not adequately preparing our children to meet the increasingly complex demands of 21st Century work and learning environments. Literacy is a critical component for success. In 2011, 42 percent of Arizona’s fourth graders fell below basic reading levels on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Many of the almost 800,000 Arizona children under age nine face significant barriers to school readiness, including poverty (23 percent), difficulty speaking and understanding English (47.6 percent), and lack of exposure to books and other literacy resources.
That’s why Arizona Department of Education, First Things First, Head Start State Collaboration Office, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, Helios Education Foundation, Arizona Community Foundation, local United Ways throughout the state and numerous other community stakeholders have all come together to form a statewide literacy initiative called Read On Arizona. Read On Arizona is a statewide public/private partnership working to improve language and literacy outcomes for Arizona’s children from birth to age 8
Well-established research underscores the vital importance of addressing this early literacy crisis. Children entering kindergarten without the skills they need to succeed in school rarely meet the critical milestone of reading proficiently by third grade, a strong predictor of future academic and vocational success.
Here in Arizona we are beginning to take action to address this crisis. The implementation of the Common Core Standards puts us on track to have the expectations and rigor needed to increase the literacy skills of Arizona’s children. Literacy is infused throughout every category of the new standards, a common thread among the four key skills of a 21st Century student: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.
Taking effect in the 2013-2014 school year, Arizona’s statute Move On When Reading (ARS-15-701) also raises expectations for our students. It requires schools to retain third-grade students who attain a “Falls Far Below” designation — the lowest reading level category — on the AIMS test and who don’t qualify for an exemption.
An estimated five percent of Arizona students could be impacted by this retention policy, and additional 15 percent fall in the next lowest “Approaching” category.
In all, more than 22,000 third-grade students are potentially at risk for not being at grade level. The adoption of these more rigorous standards underscores our highest aspirations for our students and also the extent of the challenge facing Arizona on the path to grade-level reading.
As the State Literacy Director, I believe the key to Arizona’s future is a statewide, community-based literacy project. Educators, families, businesses, public agencies, philanthropy and communities all have a role to play.
Only when early literacy becomes everyone’s responsibility will we have the kind of impact and change we need to see Arizona thrive.
Read On Arizona has been developed to address the significant challenges Arizona faces in reaching its grade level reading goals. It connects to the state learning standards and the Arizona State Literacy Plan, a roadmap to improve language and literacy outcomes.
With its broad collaborative engagement and a 10-year strategic literacy action plan, Read On Arizona will direct us towards the bold but achievable goal of reading success for all of Arizona’s young children and create real and sustainable solutions to the early literacy crisis in Arizona.
A Call to Action:
To realize the visionary goal of 100 percent of third graders at or above reading proficiency we need everyone to play their part. Volunteer to read to a preschool class, tutor or mentor a student who needs help in building their literacy skills, adopt a community library or organize a local book drive.
Family, friend and neighbor care, child care providers, preschools, elementary schools, afterschool and summer programs, community libraries and the local grocery store can all provide rich language experiences for young children and present opportunities to improve literacy skills.
Most importantly, we have to actively change our behavior in how we value the development of early literacy. Improving the skills of Arizona’s young children is everybody’s business and everyone needs to play their part.
Only when Arizona, as a community, makes literacy a priority can we deliver on the promise that when Arizona Reads, Arizona Thrives.
Terri Clark is the State of Arizona’s literacy director, a consulting position funded by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust in collaboration with the Arizona Department of Education, Arizona Head Start Collaboration Office, First Things First and other philanthropic partners.
VofReason posted at 3:26 pm on Mon, Feb 25, 2013.
All her suggestions sound good, but tiptoe around the real issues of irrisponsible parents and an irresponsible society.
VofReason posted at 3:25 pm on Mon, Feb 25, 2013.
Here is something. If kids don't speak the language, no surprise they cannot read it. This may also surprise you, but if you go to the middle of Mexico, they cannot read English their either. Perhaps they should send teachers there to teach English so when the kids get here they will be able to read. Wonder how much more that will cost for taxpayers? Something else, if you are poor, don't have kids. Chances are, they will be poor too and it will be incumbent on society to support your child. Finally, no amount of money paid into education will make parent care. If they don't read to their children from an early age, good luck Charlie.
pd posted at 2:28 pm on Mon, Feb 25, 2013.
I think you'd find the NAEP scores lower for kids whose main language at home is English as well as the ESL kids. The problem is a combination of societal changes that do not allow most parents to emphasize reading and education as they did a generation ago. The breakup of many families and the trend away from stay-at-home moms has not been helpful to the literacy rate.
JMJ posted at 10:23 am on Sat, Feb 23, 2013.
The administrators who hang on to helium balloons to loom and critique and, allegedly "oversee" this construction couldn't teach their way out of a holey paper bag.
I feel badly for the colleagues I left behind who are now being forced into square holes as well-rounded and refined pegs. They are getting dinged up and bruised, and low morale and no pay raises in years are driving them out.
My own kids would not be in the schools they attended a mere 20 years ago, now. I wouldn't stand for it--and they, thankfully, are in other states and my grandkids are getting a great education, like their parents did in the east valley public schools that were, once upon a time.
JMJ posted at 10:21 am on Sat, Feb 23, 2013.
They will overcome the current buzzwords and do what they know is best practices.
What saddens me is the mass exodus of us veterans who want no part of what is being slung at us, anymore, and who hit the door asap to leave what was once a noble and revered profession. The idea that common core will help students to be learning the same concepts at each grade level nationwide sounds great. But you can't build a house with just the bricks; you need the mortar to have the cohesion to have that building stand. The bricks will not stand without that mortar, and, unfortunately, the mortar has left the building.
JMJ posted at 10:19 am on Sat, Feb 23, 2013.
Sock, I would agree with you in many ways on this one. The newer teachers coming in are going to learn to compartmentalize what needs to be taught instead of seeing the "whole picture". The veterans who have always known how to teach will still teach their students with an eye on the measurable objectives, because that's how they've always taught.
sockratties posted at 7:52 am on Sat, Feb 23, 2013.
I read the Common Core standards and theories on the AZ department of education website. What a bunch of pedantic garbage. They are vague and mercuric. I would have been impressed if they had true objectives but the standards are pie in the sky teach-speak with no substance. The kids can’t meet standards, they have to meet objectives and those don’t exist. We should be making sure students can actually do something that is measurable and repeatable. Common Core is just another layer of icing on a hollow cake.
Katydid52 posted at 11:02 pm on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
About 10 years ago, I worked in a pullout program in an elementary school in the East Valley, with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. The book we were reading that day had Spanish words mixed into the story, and I thought it was going to be fun for the Mexican students, since they were struggling to read and comprehend the stories in English. I was pretty shocked when a few could not pronounce the Spanish words either.
As others have posted, reading skills begin very early with parents. If parents make no effort to read to read to their children or have books in their home, their children will be at a disadvantage from the beginning.
JMJ posted at 5:19 pm on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
MT: I don't know what curriculum you are following, but the content you describe was never part of the reading choices in MPS.
mesateacher posted at 1:48 pm on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
100% will never happen, but 98% is possible - there are many places that reach that. Teaching kids to read is easy: but in modern educational theory they've forgotten the well known lessons from the past and instead prefer progressive nonsense. Kids learn to read by first being read to. In kindergarten and more importantly at home. Remember dad reading a bedtime story? If mom or dad don't do it, the kid is already handicapped. Then in grade 1 it's phonics, phonics, phonics. I know ASU professors disagree. They're wrong. Then kids read outloud in class - a lot. Required book reports. But with all the nonsense teachers are expected to do these days, who has time for reading. Unless it's about lesbian transvestites who are protesting to stop selling guns which would stop global warming. Now that they would have time to read!
valleynative posted at 1:14 pm on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
The federal government's failure to control the border and enact reasonable immigration policy is the underlying cause. They should shift money from other social programs into helping to educate these children.
Parents who fear interacting with any government agency out of fear of deportation aren't likely to be willing to take their kids to a government-owned library.
chatmandu002 posted at 10:56 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
More money doesn't not equate to a better education.
DonMey posted at 10:26 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
Half the kids have problem even speaking English, and you think a literacy campaign will help? If their parents aren't even having the kids assimilate to the spoken language, you think they'll be any progress on the written?
And if 42% are below, why hold back only 5%? And your "visionary" goal of 100% competency is better served with honesty: "impossible goal".
JMJ posted at 10:21 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
Two of my children read by age three; another by kindergarten; and grandchildren, now, by ages 3 and 4. The others are still 2 or younger, but books are everywhere in their homes.
You know there's a literacy problem when children arrive in school, and they do not even know how to orient a book into a reading position, and cannot identify the front or the back of the book.
By the time the third-graders are actually being retained to address this issue, there will be 20 third grade classrooms in each school, I'm afraid.
Essayons.
JMJ posted at 10:20 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
Trying to fit in commentary with this SPAM filter has lost part of my submissions.
Anyone with a brain and vision for their children's success, however impoverished or even illiterate, themselves, must recognize that literacy begins in the home--and even impoverished or illiterate parents can pick up a book instead of a video game, or take their children to a library for story hour. There are still parents out there with limited resources who place a high priority on educating their children so their offspring will have a better lot in life.
JMJ posted at 10:02 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
DTR: Too true. Charter School sweetheart deals just prove that the inbreeding of the state's political relationships exist. It's everywhere, rampant, runs amok, and the players could care less about the education of our children, unless there's profit somewhere in it for them.
valleynative posted at 9:15 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
The single biggest factor is that the parents of half of our incoming first grade students speak very little English, and so are unable to read to their children in English. Many can't even read their native language.
Any realistic effort to increase student literacy must address the issue of parental illiteracy.
downtownresident posted at 8:54 am on Fri, Feb 22, 2013.
If we could just get the self-serving legislature to do something except sell themselves to the highest bidder, we might have a better educational system. Instead, what do they do, they rob education to fund the pet projects of the highest bidders, who will never be the tax payers and voters.
Or, divert money to charter schools so that they can profit from doing sweetheart deals with the owners, who are likely their relatives ,while they are double dipping from taxpayers at the same time.