But by the time the class leaves the following spring, the majority are ready for fourth-grade reading. It鈥檚 a transformation made possible by Frederick Elementary鈥檚 third-grade teaching team, whose strategies include daily interventions that break down literacy into 15 distinct skills.听

Frederick Elementary has roughly 360 students in a district of 737, located about 45 miles from Lawton, the nearest mid-sized city. About 87% of elementary students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch during the 2023-24 school year, which would predict a third-grade reading proficiency rate of only 40%, according to federal data that are the basis of 麻豆精品鈥檚 Bright Spots literacy project. Instead, 71% of the school’s third graders were proficient in reading.

The academic scores of all schools in Oklahoma rose that year, after the education department, led by then-State Superintendent Ryan Walters, lowered testing standards. After the state last year, Frederick鈥檚 proficiency rate came in at 66%. 

Oklahoma requires students in early grades to receive reading intervention if they score below the 40th percentile on a screening test that鈥檚 given multiple times a year. Depending on a student鈥檚 level, state statute mandates specialized instruction in small groups at least twice a week.

At Frederick Elementary, reading intervention occurs daily.

The school鈥檚 program, called , can be difficult to implement, said reading specialist Danna Akin. 

鈥淭here’s been other schools that have wanted to get started in it, and they bought into the program, but it’s hard to get started,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he scheduling gets pretty complicated.鈥�

Students who score below the 40th percentile then take an exam with 95 Percent and are grouped together by the specific reading skills they are missing, such as understanding silent 鈥渆.鈥� A teacher 鈥� sometimes the librarian or special education instructor 鈥� works on a particular skill during a period called flex time, a 45-minute block that occurs each morning.

鈥淭he students above the 40th percentile obviously don’t need 95 Percent, so we put them in larger reading comprehension groups,鈥� Akin said. 鈥淏ut for the 95 groups, we try to keep it to seven or less [students] so they can get that one-on-one intervention time.鈥�

The instruction starts with plastic envelopes, each containing lessons and activities that teach a specific phonics skill. Students will move small chips over a board that has letter sounds and review them with their teacher. They鈥檒l practice vocabulary, spelling and reading short passages that include words they鈥檙e struggling with. 

Each of the 15 skills in the 95 Percent program takes students roughly a week to 10 days to go through. After students graduate from a skill, they are tested again to see if they can advance to the next envelope taught by another teacher during flex time.

鈥淚f you’re only doing [reading intervention] twice a week, they’re not going to get the reinforcement that they need. But if you’re doing it five times a week and for 45 minutes, they’ll get what they need,鈥� Akin said. 鈥淏y the time you’ve done that much reinforcement with them and you’ve spent that much time on a skill, they’ve got it.鈥�

Akin and Frederick鈥檚 three third-grade teachers review student progress at least once a week to see what each child still needs to become more proficient. A data wall in Principal Laura Yeager鈥檚 office tracks where each student in the intervention program is at.

鈥淪ometimes it takes a little while, but eventually they all get out of the 95 Percent program, and then they’re working on those grade-level skills,鈥� Yeager said. 鈥淭his year, we’ve been really fortunate. We鈥檝e been very, very successful getting kids out of it.鈥�

Frederick Elementary has only third, fourth and fifth grades. Younger students attend the Prather Brown Center from pre-K through second grade.

鈥淚t’s really challenging, because when the second graders come to us, we usually have a large amount that fall under that 40th percentile,鈥� Akin said. 

That’s a trend seen nationwide: A found that by the middle of the 2024-25 school year, only 58% of second graders were on track for core reading instruction and were likely to meet grade-level standards by spring.

Frederick’s third grade teaching team starts each school year with the mindset that they can鈥檛 begin with third grade standards, because they have to review second grade skills first. 

鈥淲e’re having to fill these phonics holes, which I think is happening probably everywhere 鈥� I don’t feel like that’s just a Frederick Elementary thing,鈥� said Halle Pineda, one of the third grade teachers. 鈥淏ut I don’t feel like we really get their best third-grade self until about January. And by then, we only have four months until it’s time to start wrapping up. It鈥檚 a game of catch-up.鈥�

Last fall, Frederick Elementary received $10,000 from the state to bolster the 95 Percent program. Yeager said the money was part of Oklahoma鈥檚 new , which has an initiative solely for rural schools. Frederick Elementary used the money for high-dosage tutoring in reading. Early data showed some students jumped from the 30th to the 60th percentile in literacy. Others, on average, improved 12 percentage points in their performance.

Oklahoma has been trying to improve its reading proficiency scores for . Legislation implemented in 2013 required third graders to be held back a grade if they scored poorly on the state鈥檚 reading test. After years of back and forth and added exemptions to the retention law, it was .听

Now, literacy is back on the table, and it鈥檚 center stage. Lawmakers want to reverse Oklahoma鈥檚 , which show that 27% of students scored at or above grade level in English language arts and 36% scored below basic during the 2024-25 school year. 

A law has a robust set of guidelines for struggling readers and reinstates third-grade retention. It鈥檚 part of a by the state鈥檚 chamber of commerce to boost local economies and make Oklahoma more competitive against other states for employees and business.

Beginning next school year, the mandates that first and second graders who don鈥檛 read at grade level at the end of the year either be held back or receive reading interventions when they return to school. 

Parents will be notified of their child鈥檚 reading deficiency within 30 days of its discovery. Third graders not at grade level by the end of the school year will be retained unless they qualify for an exemption. Some exemptions are geared toward English learners, students with disabilities or children who were already held back in earlier grades.

Chad Warmington, CEO of the , said there have been 鈥渓essons learned鈥� from the 2013 legislation that required third grade retention. This year鈥檚 law uses the practice as a last resort, he said. 

鈥淵ou can’t put in place a retention policy at the expense of all the other things that are going to improve outcomes 鈥� that’s just not how it works,鈥� he said. 鈥淟ast time, there was far more emphasis placed on the retention part, and not enough on what we are going to do to make sure teachers coming out of teaching schools are trained on the science of reading. Or that the teachers in the classroom are retrained and given opportunities to improve their skills in the science of reading.鈥�

Some educators want legislators to focus on other challenges in the classroom than reading proficiency, said Erika Wright, founder and former leader of the .

鈥淥ur teachers have been screaming about class sizes and behavior, and pay is always on the burner. When this whole literacy [initiative] came out, we pulled together a group with the State Chamber to sit in a room so that they could listen,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 sat in that room for four hours listening to the teachers saying, ‘This is awesome, but you’re not listening to us. This will not work because I have 29 kids in the kindergarten class and 14 of them have Individualized Education Programs and eight of them don’t speak English. I don’t have an assistant. I am spending all of my day managing behavior.’ 鈥�

Warmington said he鈥檚 heard from teachers who are dealing with similar issues, but a 鈥渧ast majority were absolutely for this deal.鈥�

Yeager said very few Frederick Elementary third graders were held back when a retention law was in place a few years ago, so the new legislation won鈥檛 have much of an impact in that area. But that Oklahoma held back more students than all other states, except Mississippi, when the old retention law was still active.

A small number of third graders will go through the 95 Percent program again once they enter fourth grade to build back skills they lost over the summer, Yeager said.

鈥淲e have a unique culture and a great team that works together with these 95 Percent groups. We also do these groups in fourth grade to make sure we’re not missing skills,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t doesn’t just stop with third grade, but it gives you that idea that, 鈥楾his is just not my class, and I’m responsible for my class鈥� scores.鈥� They’re all our kids, and that’s something my teachers say that makes the difference.鈥�

I live and work in a somewhat isolated corner of western Arizona, along the banks of the Colorado River. Here in Lake Havasu City, the nearest major airport is nearly three hours away. We are a bit removed from the world, with plenty of natural beauty and vacationing tourists but no neighbors. Without peers in other school districts or hands-on outside support, it鈥檚 up to us to make sure we鈥檙e getting things right for our students.

This year, we鈥檙e seeing a strong signal that we鈥檙e doing just that. Based on practice-test data, juniors at Lake Havasu High School are expected to score about 21, on average, on the ACT this spring 鈥� higher than the national average of 19.4. Back in 2021-22, our average ACT score was 17.5 and last year, it was 18.7. 

What changed?

It鈥檚 often said that there are no silver bullet solutions in education, and after 34 years working in classrooms and schools, that certainly rings true. But I can also point to one clear starting point for our high-school students鈥� academic rise: the adoption and tireless implementation of knowledge-building reading and social studies curricula in all of our elementary and middle schools five years ago. 

The work began in a single district school: a classical charter elementary school where educators opted to use knowledge-building. This was a major change for teachers and students. 

Often, elementary reading curricula are organized by a target skill of the day, and the topic of that day鈥檚 text or worksheet isn鈥檛 necessarily connected from one day or week to the next. These new knowledge-building curricula were organized by content鈥攊n each unit, they鈥檇 spend weeks reading, writing and discussing topics like fables, Mayan civilization, geology, as they practiced reading skills. Meanwhile, instructional materials in social studies are typically created or curated by individual teachers. The new curricula were designed to build knowledge over time, across an entire school or district.

Almost immediately, we noticed impressive, and important, changes. Students were engaging differently, with more confidence, stronger vocabulary and a deeper understanding of the content they were learning. I remember seeing fourth graders confidently explain key ideas from the American Revolution, saying things like, 鈥淲ait, so it wasn鈥檛 just about tea. The colonists were mad because Britain kept taxing them without letting them vote, so they decided to break away and make their own government!鈥�

If this was possible at one school, why wouldn鈥檛 we want this content-rich learning for every student? Pockets of excellence are insufficient and just plain unfair. And that gave us our next step: adopting the curricula districtwide.

It was a lot more complex than just ordering new materials. We needed to build a new, shared understanding of teaching and learning, one that was rooted in knowledge. As a district, we had to agree that all students need access to rich history, science, and literature content, and that what they learn in one year should intentionally prepare them for the next. We needed to develop a non-negotiable collective commitment to implement the curriculum with fidelity at every level.

Implementation was not instant or easy. If you鈥檝e ever watched a rowing team, you know that success doesn鈥檛 come from one strong rower working in isolation. It comes from the team’s shared timing, steady rhythm and trust in one another. That鈥檚 what we had to build.

Administrators strived to be honest and transparent about what the shift to knowledge-building instruction entailed. One difficult move: Teachers were required to stop using any materials or activities that were not part of the new curricula. They had to let go of familiar practices, which for some may have felt like walking into the abyss. But we also offered support, including monthly district-wide professional learning communities by grade level. 

This allowed teachers to plan together, wrestle with the materials and ask questions. We also gave teachers time and space to expand their background content knowledge, a crucial opportunity for elementary generalists preparing for in-depth history lessons.

Instructional leaders also played a big part. They visited classrooms frequently and shared informal feedback, guiding teachers to follow pacing guides and stay true to the new materials even when it felt uncomfortable. They also observed and provided implementation feedback to principals, whose support would be integral to our success. 

It was excruciatingly challenging and, at times, frustrating. But then we began to see glimmers of positive change, like sunlight on a river. Young students were engaging in conversations about history and literature with confidence. They were using vocabulary that was grounded in knowledge, not memorization, and making connections between what they read and what they wrote.

As the years passed, we saw students carrying ideas from one grade to the next, building on what they already knew instead of starting over. The gains accrued: fifth graders were excited to learn about the Maya, Aztec and Inca, exploring their pyramids, calendars and daily life; seventh graders were then able to analyze the rise and fall of those same civilizations, examine their systems of governance and belief and evaluate the impact of Spanish conquest because they had a foundation of knowledge to build on. 

Best of all, this development was consistent across classrooms and schools. Students had stronger comprehension, greater stamina, and a deeper ability to think critically about what they read. These were not pockets of opportunity, but knowledge for all. 

We are proud of the progress we鈥檝e made. More of our schools are by the state of Arizona 鈥� including four of our six elementary schools and the high school. This growth reflects not only the work we鈥檝e done with curriculum but also the coherence, alignment and intentional instruction happening across every classroom. We are rowing in the same direction.

Our implementation efforts aren鈥檛 over, because strong systems don鈥檛 stand still. Every lesson, every text, every discussion is another stroke forward. While the impacts of our work were almost immediate in elementary and middle school, we鈥檙e also getting a fuller sense of just how much building knowledge in the early grades benefits students in high school. Knowledge doesn鈥檛 just assist with reading comprehension today and instructional coherence tomorrow; it.

So we carry on. Just like in crew, we keep adjusting, listening and refining our practice based on what we learn. We take joy in this daily work and its results so far 鈥� but we鈥檙e most inspired by the future. Because when schools create opportunity, there is no limit to what our students can achieve.

鈥淚t’s something that the students are very, very proud of,鈥� said librarian Annelise Rodriguez, who created and manages the Millionaires Club. 鈥淲e’ve had kids come in when they take tours and say, 鈥業’m going to be up there some day.鈥� Some kids get it in 45 books, and for others, it鈥檚 taken 360 books.鈥�

The project was created three years ago to motivate and recognize young avid readers in the of roughly 600 students. Just a few weeks ago, a grandmother who didn鈥檛 speak English bowed her head to thank Rodriguez after her grandchild鈥檚 photo finally made the display. 

Last year, Windsor Park students read 400 million words as part of the Millionaires Club. They are on track to beat that record, with over 315 million words read by the end of February. It鈥檚 one of the ways the school has attained its high reading proficiency rates, an achievement that earned its ranking on 麻豆精品鈥檚 Bright Spots list. The highlighted schools have third grade literacy scores that are much higher than might be expected, based on the schools鈥� poverty rates. 

With its 29% poverty level, nearly two-thirds of Windsor Park third graders were projected to be proficient in reading in 2024, but its actual score was 96%. That rate jumped to 99% last year. Nearly 50% of students are Hispanic, 29% are white and 15% are Asian. 

Windsor Park is a magnet school for gifted and talented children. Texas schools to screen their students, and all children in the Corpus Christi Independent School District who score in the top 3% receive an invitation to transfer to Windsor Park, said Principal Kimberly Bissell. Transportation is provided. 

The consists of multiple tests that grade students鈥� achievement in reading and math, as well as problem-solving and critical thinking abilities. Students can transfer in any grade to Corpus Christi鈥檚 gifted and talented schools.  

Windsor Park is also the district鈥檚 only elementary school. The worldwide educational program allows teachers to write their own curriculum and offer rigorous instruction along with inquiry-based learning.

鈥淲e have kids who are in first grade reading at a middle school or high school level,鈥� Bissell said. 鈥淭hose things have always been true, but the initiative behind their personal achievement has certainly ramped up in the last few years with our new approaches.鈥�

The Millionaires Club, which is expanding to other schools in the 33,000-student district, is one of them. The number of words children read are tracked through Accelerated Reader, an online program that records finished books and comprehension. 

Windsor Park also recently launched a called 鈥渢hinking classrooms.鈥� Originally created for math education, it students working in small groups, solving problems while standing up at whiteboards and building on pieces of knowledge as they go. But Bissell said Windsor Park implemented this approach across all its classes. 

It especially improved students鈥� writing skills because the children use the whiteboards to organize text and story structure, she said. 

In Hanna Patton-Elliott鈥檚 third grade classroom on a recent morning, students became “doctors,” pulling on blue medical gloves before separating into groups of two or three. Each group had to assess a passage of text on a whiteboard 鈥� the 鈥減atient鈥� 鈥� by finding the main idea. The children then diagnosed their 鈥減atients鈥� by writing a conclusion for what the passage was about.

Patton-Elliott said that at the end of the class, students rotate and evaluate one another鈥檚 work as “attending doctors” 鈥� the staff who oversee the work of a medical team. 

鈥淚’m going to give them an opportunity to write the conclusions for other people’s work, but then also go back and look at it as the first attending doctor,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o we’ve got lots of things going on. We’ve got some reading skills, we’ve got the main idea, we’ve got organization, but then also we’ve got some creative writing, too. The metaphor seems to be working for breaking this down and organizing it.鈥�

The activity is part of the curricular materials written by Windsor Park teachers under the International Baccalaureate program. Teachers create their grade-level curriculum together to ensure that the same lessons 鈥� such as finding the main idea of a story 鈥� are taught in each classroom, even if the activities may be different. Because Windsor Park classes are interdisciplinary, teachers try to connect the same ideas in all academic subjects, so what the children learn in reading, for example, is referenced in math class.

Much of Windsor Park鈥檚 instruction uses standards from the Texas Education Agency, but infuses it with student-led learning and group collaboration. The curriculum also allows children to make decisions and manage their own instruction, such as choosing the grading rubrics for an activity. 

鈥淲e find not just for gifted learners, but as a best practice, this idea of choice and student agency really builds writing, as well as reading and everything that English Language arts envelopes,鈥� Bissell said. 鈥淲hen you offer choice with expectations, they do a lot better.鈥�

Mid-year data from Amplify, a curriculum and assessment provider, shows that while the so-called 鈥淐OVID cohort鈥� of students in kindergarten, first and second grade are making progress, they haven鈥檛 caught up to where students in those grade levels were performing before schools shut down in March 2020.听

At this point in the 2019-20 school year, for example, 58 percent of first-graders were scoring at or above the grade-level goals. This time last year 鈥� when only about half of the nation鈥檚 schools were offering full-time, in-person learning 鈥� 44 percent of first-graders were on track. Now 48 percent are reaching the benchmark.

Results from fourth- and fifth-graders, however, show greater recovery, with the rates of students meeting benchmarks nearly back to the same level they were in the winter of the 2019-20 school year.

鈥淟earning disruptions had a significant impact on our literacy outcomes,鈥� said Susan Lambert, chief academic officer of elementary humanities at Amplify. She added that this year鈥檚 quarantines and short-term closures have likely contributed to the slow progress. 鈥淔or the youngest learners to go to school for two or three days and then be out for 10 鈥� it鈥檚 not just picking up where you left off; it鈥檚 actually starting all over again.鈥�

Whether they skipped kindergarten and pre-K or spent much of their school years learning over Zoom, students in the primary grades didn鈥檛 have a normal introduction to reading. Educators note that less time to build vocabulary skills through socializing and disparities in children鈥檚 home lives 鈥� some had parents who read to them every night while others missed out 鈥� have contributed to the gaps. But reading experts and tutoring providers say they鈥檙e seeing students make strong gains with one-on-one support. The pandemic, they add, has only brought greater awareness to a persistent challenge. 

鈥淲hat has happened in the past couple years is more dramatic, but it鈥檚 not anything new for us who work in early literacy. Children have been struggling with reading for years and years,鈥� said Kate Bauer-Jones, who runs Future Forward, an early literacy and family engagement program that works with districts in Alabama, Georgia and Wisconsin. The program recently received a $14 million from the U.S. Department of Education to expand to eight more states.

to improve reading instruction continue to spread, but Kymyona Burk, senior policy fellow for early literacy at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, said it can take two to three years before districts start to see gains. Schools, she said, also need to identify children who might have learning disabilities and provide parents with materials to use at home.

She added that even when children returned to in-person learning, social distancing from peers and teachers still got in the way of listening and speaking, which contribute to early reading skills. 

The Amplify data also shows racial disparities, with Black and Hispanic students in K-2 not making as strong of a comeback as white students and gaps growing larger than they were before the pandemic.

Amplify assesses students with DIBELS, or Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills 鈥� a widely used measure of early reading development. The results are drawn from a national sample of 400,000 K-5 students from 1,300 schools in 37 states, allowing the researchers to compare pre-pandemic and current performance. While the schools in the research sample are more likely to be in large urban areas 鈥� and spent a longer period on remote or hybrid learning 鈥� Paul Gazzerro, Amplify鈥檚 director of data analytics, said he鈥檚 seeing similar performance across all schools using its assessment, which he described as 鈥渟obering.鈥�

DIBELS itself doesn鈥檛 involve a lot of reading, but helps to predict how well children develop literacy skills by testing how fast and accurately they identify words, explained Rachael Gabriel, an associate professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut.

She agreed that racial gaps in the early grades are widening and that 鈥渟tudents are coming into K and 1 with different sets of skills鈥� than before the pandemic. But at the same time, schools are 鈥渄oubling down鈥� on remediation and using both virtual and in-person tutoring programs to help students catch up.

She urged parents without access to tutoring to keep reading and writing with their children.

鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 solve the problem,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 a protective factor that makes students more resilient鈥� when instruction doesn鈥檛 match their needs.

Future Forward鈥檚 tutors are seeing those needs up close.

鈥淲e have first-graders who can’t sing the alphabet song,鈥� Bauer-Jones said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing first graders coming in with no familiarity with text.鈥�

During remote learning, her tutors mailed magnetic letters, books and literacy materials to children鈥檚 homes. But even if students consistently participated in Zoom sessions, those were 鈥渋n no way, shape or form equivalent to in-person learning,鈥� she said. 

In fact, she added, tutors don鈥檛 see much difference in skills between young children who skipped pre-K or kindergarten in 2020-21 completely and those who spent much of that year in virtual learning.

Now that students are back in school, Bauer-Jones is concerned about the second graders who have 鈥渘ever had a normal school experience,鈥� she said, asking a question also on the minds of most teachers and parents: 鈥淲hat in the world are we going to see from those kids when they hit the third grade benchmark next year?鈥�

鈥楿ndoing the trauma鈥�

Many of this year鈥檚 third-graders also missed key opportunities to become stronger readers, said Jessica Sliwerski, CEO of Open Up Resources, a nonprofit curriculum provider, and founder of , a virtual tutoring model that offers students 15 minutes of one-on-one help over Zoom during the school day. Now in California, New York and Massachusetts, the program will serve 1,000 students by this fall. 

Sliwerski acknowledged the challenges of expanding tutoring, but noted that depending on volunteers can limit a program鈥檚 success. Her tutors aren鈥檛 volunteers; they make $20 per hour.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 affect sustainable change through reliance on volunteers,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 want people who might go work in an Amazon warehouse to come be a tutor.鈥�

She recounted how In October, some third graders tested at kindergarten and first grade levels, when by the end of first, they should be automatically recognizing words and reading them fluently. 

Results from a pilot program at Kipp Bridge Academy in West Oakland showed that when tutors began working with the third graders on decoding skills, they responded with 77 percent accuracy on a DIBELS 鈥渙ral reading fluency鈥� test. After 53 days, their accuracy increased to 86 percent.

Sliwerski called the growth 鈥減owerful.鈥�

鈥淚t’s changing their identities as readers and undoing the trauma that they brought into the program when they said things like, 鈥業’m not a good reader鈥� and 鈥業 hate reading,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淭his group of students will not necessarily leave us on grade level, but will leave us as stronger, more accurate decoders.鈥�