A new literacy plan lays out steps to improve Arizona’s reading rates by 2030
Can 72% of Arizona third-graders read at grade level in the next five years? That's the goal set in place by the Arizona Literacy Plan 2030.
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PHOENIX – One Arizona group is launching a new mission aimed at increasing the number of students who can read at grade level by the time they reach third grade by more than 30%.
Read On Arizona’s (ROA) Arizona Literacy Plan 2030 is a step-by-step outline of how to raise Arizona’s third-grade reading levels from 39% to 72% within the next five years.
Reaching this level is critical as children who are not reading proficiently by third grade and four times more likely to drop out before graduating high school, according to ROA.
The group also says that with the right teaching and support, 95% of children can learn to read.
The guide matches the Arizona Progress Meter’s goal, creating an outline for educators and parents to do their part in raising the reading rates.
Terri Clark with ROA said the organization created the plan by asking for improvement feedback from education stakeholders over the past 18 months. This helped ROA come up with a way for all the collaborators in a child’s education to improve their reading results.
“Families [who] play a critical part [as] educators in the classroom are… a partner in this and we have to be coordinated, we have to be aligned, and we have to be collaborating so that we make sure that those students who need more resources, who need more help, are getting it,” she said.
How will the Arizona Literacy Plan 2030 work?
Some of the strategies included in the plan are increasing training for educators, improving access to quality early learning, and reducing chronic absenteeism, which Clark said is a continuing issue in the state.
“What we now have in Arizona is a chronic absence state resource guide that really walks through what are effective strategies that are evidence-based that can help you and support families and make sure that their children can improve,” she said.
A report from the Arizona Department of Education shows that the rate of children who are chronically absent from school was at 24% last year, nearly double the level seen before the pandemic (13% in 2019).
Clark said if this goal is met by 2030, other progress trackers in our education system may also see a significant boost.
Some of the key goals in the Arizona Literacy Plan 2030 include sending 50 literacy coaches where they are most needed by 2026, having all Arizona schools use high-quality teaching materials by 2027, making sure all K-5 teachers in Arizona are trained in the science of reading by 2028 and identifying what investments need to be made in preschools to help increase the literacy rate by 2029.
Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.
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Comments
3 Comments
You had a typo in this article about literacy.
"Reaching this level is critical as children who are not reading proficiently by third grade **and** four times more likely to drop out before graduating high school, according to ROA."
should read 'ARE four times more likely'
"sending 50 literacy coaches where they are most"
that plus the additional "training" is exactly why there is a funding problem. Fire all these "coaches", stop paying all these "trainers" and give the actual teachers what they need, aka more teachers, smaller class sizes.
when my wife was a public school teacher, we were continually disgusted how how much these coaches were paid (3x the cost of a teacher in some cases), the cost of the continuous change in curriculum and the cost of the pointless trainings required to keep their licenses.
its a joke and a scam. You want to hire more teachers? Want to pay them more? Get rid of all this pointless bs that obviously hasnt helped, gut the admin as well. There is plenty of money to make an impact. And after that is done, if we still need more funding, I'll be the first to cast my vote in favor of increased funding. Until the eliminate the waste and abuse, I will not support a dime increased.
The answer is not in this program but parents reading to their kids. But they can't say that because it might offend parents who don't.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents read aloud to their children starting at birth.
Children who are read to early:
Develop larger vocabularies
Gain stronger language comprehension
Are better prepared for kindergarten
Tend to read earlier and more fluently