How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

Posted by on April 24, 2011

At risk from the get-go

A new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds that students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma. For readers who can’t master even basic skills by third grade, the rate is six times greater. The longitudinal study of nearly 4,000 students calculates high school graduation rates for children at different reading skill levels and with different poverty rates. Overall, 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor. This rises to 32 percent for students spending more than half of childhood in poverty. Even among poor children who were proficient readers in third grade, 11 percent still didn’t finish high school. That compares to 9 percent of subpar third grade readers who have never been poor. Graduation rates for black and Hispanic students who were not proficient readers in third grade lagged far behind those for white students with the same reading skills. The findings in the report suggest three environments where new policies and programs could foster children’s school success: schools; family; and federal, state, and local policy.

See the report: http://www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications.aspx?pubguid={D4DBAD77-DE2E-4FAE-B443-A9AEEBBC6E35}