Third-Grade Reading Law

“Your county has some of the worst literacy rates in the state. According to your test scores, most of you can barely even read or write. I will be honest with you; I think that the current curriculum breeds stupidity and is only appropriate for people who aspire to complete mediocrity. I may only last one year, but I am, from this point forth, deciding not to follow the curriculum. You can leave your books under your desk, because you will not be needing them. In this class, we will dwell on our ability to think and

Multnomah County had a survey done for kindergarten teachers. The results suggested that 19.4% of their students were not headed toward literacy success, due to a lack of necessary language and pre-reading skills. There is a 90% probability of a child that is a poor reader in first grade, still being a poor reader three years later, in fourth grade (http://www.co.marion.or.us). As Early Childhood Educators, we must help our students.

Currently I work at a school that I have been at for the ten years. As a former Special Education teacher and second grade teacher, I have been able to view the academic picture from multiple vantage points. As a campus, we have consistently seen success in the area of math, however, reading has been an area of inconsistencies. When I began to look at data from recent years I noticed something in particular regarding third grade.

Taking into account of many Americans, the act of reading is not apart of our daily lives as it was many years ago. Instead, the media has taken over and leaves us at a disadvantage of developing our minds. The level of proficiency, “Fell significantly between 1992 and 2005, from 40 percent… to 35 percent (Chronicle).” In spite of that, reading gives us the opportunity to get different perspectives, learn valuable lessons, and engage emotions that might not be sparked otherwise. The list can go on and on, however, even with all of these great benefits, the literacy rate in America is continuing to drop.

Third grade is the last year of education that students are taught to read. In 2002, forty-two percent to third graders in Polk County failed the reading portion of the FCAT. This very clearly shows that most of Florida’s, or at least Polk County’s reading problems begin in elementary school. The blame for this can go to schools that have sub-par reading programs. It can alternatively be attributed to parents who don’t take the time to read with their children or hire tutors to help them when they need it. Most likely both are at blame, but only the schools seem to be putting forth an effort for changes. Florida’s parents need to understand that they are very capable of teaching their children to read.

Next, is the Early Literacy Intervention Literacy Intervention Initiative Act. “The early childhood years are the most Important period for literacy development.” (Freeman, Decker, Decker (2013) p. 231). The Early Literacy Initiative is a joint effort with the State and local government to identify children with reading deficiencies and implement early reading intervention programs. The purpose of Early Literacy Initiative is to reduce the number of poor readers by providing research based prevention programs to ensure that every student can read by the 3rd

Robert Pondiscio states “To be educated in the liberal arts is to have a broad grasp of literature, art, music, history and the sciences. That's also a fair description of what it takes to be a good reader…If you're a good reader, it's not because you've learned, practiced and mastered the "skill" of reading. Once a child learns to “decode” fluently, a child's ability to read with understanding rests heavily on whether the child knows something about the topic he or she is reading about.” While we focus on English and math being core parts of what we use in everyday life we must also focus on how to get the younger generation to grasp and have a full understanding on what they are reading. It is one thing to literally read something and absorb nothing out of the text that was read, but a completely different story for a child to read something, understand its meaning, and also reflect on what they have

Pea Ridge High School (PRHS) has long prided itself of being a high achieving school in academics; it is number six in the state for the 2013-2014 school year. Since the implementation of the Common Core Standards, PRHS has found itself having to reteach educators to use the literacy standards because most in the non-literacy/math disciplines still use the Arkansas Frameworks. Not only has the literacy standards been an arduous task to implement in the literacy areas, the high school struggles with the concept of teaching literacy in the areas that are not necessarily considered literacy areas. According to the schools’ Arkansas Consolidated School Improvement Plan (ACSIP) of which the author of this essay and project is the literacy chair for the high school, two things that is essential and requires immediate implementation in all areas is the teaching of literacy and closing the achievement gap for the target groups which are considered lower socioeconomic (free/reduced lunch), minorities, and English language learners. In an effort to ease the minds of the educators and administration, this project was instituted to help those of history, science, art, physical education, and other areas to implement the literacy standards assigned by the state. It also gives assistance and clarification for those not only in the literacy

The article talks about how teachers get lost in the curriculum and don't think they have time to teach reading or that it's "not their job," and I feel like this is true for some of the teacher's that are still teaching in school. More recently though, I feel like schools and colleges are helping prepare teachers to help the students who need help with reading by reading aloud and having students silently read or follow along and suggests that teachers try other activities to help students. Seeing some students struggle with reading in subjects outside of the ELA classrooms need to be addressed and modified too, because like the article said, there's a lot of students who aren't fluent readers and then eventually check out of school which creates a whole new set of problems. Us as future teachers need to think of or learn ways that we can help these students instead of ignoring the issue and moving past it with lessons from the

The importance of reading is consistently undermined on a daily basis and the majority of people

This literacy gap affects students’ abilities to access core textbooks and communicate and write effectively within the various subject areas. The literacy gap catches up to many of our students as they enter high school and feel overwhelmed by the challenges of increasing academic standards and more difficult vocabulary. Because they not only lack the language that will help them access and understand their classes, many students struggle with content-area reading and writing in these subjects. This could be an easy fix if the instructors that stood before these students were able to take the mastery of their content and adapt it as it deems appropriate for the young minds they are partly responsible for. Children who lack the academic language of school struggle to meet literacy requirements, and they often feel overwhelmed in the classroom. This is just the beginning of the spiral because once the students have met that stage of being overwhelmed, they often begin thinking of the short term way of dealing with this, which could be anything from completely giving up and having the grades that show this or actually dropping out.

While there are children from many socio-economical statuses that may struggle with reading in general, there is a large percentage of children from poor families that have little to no money to spend on things such as books. Children raised in poverty, those who have limited proficiency in English (when taught in an English speaking school), parents' whose reading levels are low, and those with speech, language, and hearing handicaps are also at increased risk of reading deficiencies. Of the 16 million children living in poverty in the U.S., two-thirds don’t have a book to call their own (RIF, n.d). RIF encourages reading for any child not just children that are at risk they essentially cover every child, so there is no real influence to their intervention; they simply want to ensure that every child grows up with the opportunity to

The position of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is that reading ?is the complex act of constructing meaning from print. We read in order to better understand ourselves, others, and the world around us; we use the knowledge we gain from reading to change the world in which we live.? According to the International Reading Association?s position statement (2012) as students ?prepare to become productive citizens, they must be able to comprehend and construct information using print and nonprint materials in fixed and virtual platforms across disciplines? (p. 2). The International Literacy Association in Adolescent Literacy (2012) believes content area teachers should provide ?instruction in the multiple literacy strategies needed

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations-something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.” - Katherine Patterson. Literacy is a right. It is implicit in the right to education. It is recognized as a right, explicitly for both children and adults, in certain international conventions. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and also refers to having enough reading and writing ability to function in society. People who cannot read and write are called illiterate. People are called functionally illiterate if they cannot read or write well enough to do activities that are common in social settings they encounter. Such activities may include employment, schoolwork, voting, or worship. The power of literacy is something that can change the world. How far has literacy come since the beginning and what is its history; what are the causes of a lower literacy rate; what effects can lower literacy rates have; what about higher rates; what are some ways to improve the literacy rates and; what are some of the benefits to a higher literacy rate?

Up to this day, having to read and write is still a big priority in education plans, and just like it happened to me, it is being enforced on all students. In grade school, there was a system called A.R. that would quiz us on the books we had to read and instead of reading for enjoyment we would read to meet the requirement. If we did not meet the requirement every week we would