Page 8    |    ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding

 ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding    |    Page 9

Perception: It is mostly our poor and minority students who are 
behind. We can’t really expect them to learn as fast as everyone 
else, can we? 

FACT: 

The primary driver of low achievement is not parent wealth or skin color. It is 

starting behind. Starting behind is caused by less time-on-task. Students who spend 
little time on basic academic skills from birth to five typically start behind. 

Once poor and low socioeconomic status (SES) students come to school, their rates of 
learning are almost identical to other populations, just from lower starting points. What 
you can accurately predict, is when students start one-to-three years behind in reading, 
and they only make a year of reading growth each year, they are going to score behind in 
reading, math, and science every time you test them during the next 12 years.

Perception: We have been at this for almost a decade and we still 
can’t get students to standard. We don’t think it can be done.  

FACT: 

Many schools and districts with the same demographics are making these 

gains. They are just doing different things in the highly leveraged areas of:

 

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Parent engagement in birth to five literacy, 

 

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Grade level reading in grades kindergarten through third grade,  
especially in kindergarten and by third grade, and

 

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Summer gain and loss.

Perception: Why bother with parents whose children aren’t even 
in school yet?

FACT:

 It is in the homes, not the schools, that the five-year literacy gap before 

kindergarten is created. The easiest place to change a child’s academic trajectory is from 
birth to age five. Forward looking districts create simple organizational structures to help 
and inform parents of the lowest 40 percent of students to do what the parents of the 
top 40 percent of students do – read 20 minutes every day to their children beginning at 
birth, talking to them and spending another 5 to 10 minutes each day on age appropriate 
literacy, math and social skills. 

     Preventing Reading, Math and Science Failure

Perception: We have an effective reading program. It just doesn’t 
work all the time with all of our kids. What should we be doing 
differently?

FACT: 

Kindergarten through third grade is the second easiest place to change 

students’ academic trajectory, and especially in kindergarten. Effective reading programs 
start with generous allocations of instruction time: An initial hour of whole class 
instruction. A second hour of differentiated instruction with students grouped by ability, 
and part or all of a third hour for students who are two-to-three years behind (below the 
30th percentile). The curriculum should explicitly teach phonics. The assessment should 
measure growth, as well as achievement and be done in fall, winter and spring starting in 
kindergarten. Teachers and principals should also be trained.   

The testing technology, curriculum and use of time-practices have all been developed. 
You may think you have a good reading program but it is only good if 90 percent of your 
students read at or above grade level.

Perception: It’s over after third grade if students aren’t already 
reading on grade level.

FACT: 

No, it just harder. School is less fun, student self-image as non-readers 

solidifies, and the instructional time issue becomes a mini-death spiral. Before third 
grade students learn to read. After third grade they read to learn. Behind-in-reading 
students now need much more time to master the same content as other students. But 
at the same time, they may need to take up to two hours each day away from other 
subjects to learn grade-level reading skills. By high school, you may barely be able to 
keep many of these students in school, let alone in two hours of remedial reading. 

Preventing...Continued