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Monday, November 28, 2011

Heads up for Third Graders!

A recent study released by the American Educational Research Association, found that students who can't read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate high school by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time.  When you add poverty to that, than a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her "wealthier" peer.

YIKES!!

I find this to be scary, sad, and somewhat true.  I know as a first grade teacher, that reading is EVERYTHING....that is practically all we do in my classroom.  But with large classroom sizes, little to no extra assistance, and many english-language learners, teachers' days are stressful and tough.

BUT, we students have the opportunity to receive extra reading support (like at CGTP), then we need to give them those opportunities as often as possible.  We should be creating more opportunities for students to read even after first and second grade.  When we know there is an at-risk reader on our hands, we must acknowledge that and provide high-success reading experiences for our students, along with reading instruction that showcases a variety of skills.  Skills that we have been testing our CGTP students on with the DORA tests (i.e. phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, etc.).  So, tutors, now that you have the facts (test scores, school grades, etc.), we have the tools at our center (resource room, and myself), let's come face to face with our struggling readers and send them into a reading momentum of success in order to get them to become on-level readers.

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