(Editor's note: This article was published first at Illinois Policy Institute)
Low 3rd-grade literacy is warning for future learning, earning potential
Few Illinois third-grade students can read at grade level. Even fewer low-income and minority students are at grade level in reading. Research shows this is a warning sign for Illinois students’ academic success and adult earning potential.
Just over one-fourth of all third-grade students in Illinois can read at grade level. For low-income and minority students, reading proficiency is even worse.
A student’s “academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone’s reading skill at the end of third grade,” according to the National Research Council.
By this measure, the outlook for Illinois third-grade students is grim. Even more troubling is the outlook for Illinois students from low-income and minority families.
What’s at stake isn’t just poor grades on report cards in third grade, but what poor reading proficiency means for students’ futures. As noted in the research to follow, the poor rates of reading proficiency plaguing Illinois threaten to condemn a portion of the state’s future adults to poverty. The price will be paid not just by the children our education system fails but also by society at large.
Third-grade literacy in Illinois
Statewide in 2022, only 27.4% of all students could read at grade level by the end of third grade. A startling 89% of the 734 school districts for which the Illinois State Board of Education recorded proficiency rates among third graders had a higher percentage of third-grade students failing to read at grade level than reading at grade level. There were 12 school districts in which no third-grade students were proficient at reading.
The statistics are even worse among low-income students.
Just 14% of low-income third-grade students statewide were reading at proficiency. In 587 of 595 – or almost 99% – of school districts that reported proficiency data for low-income third grade students, a higher percentage of students were not proficient at reading than proficient. In 26 school districts, no low-income third-grade students were proficient in reading.
Minority students are likewise struggling to read at grade level in Illinois. Just 11.1% of Black third-grade students could read at grade level in 2022. In 20 school districts, no Black third-grade students could read at grade level. Only 177 school districts had proficiency data for Black third-grade students and in nearly 99% of them, a higher percentage of students were not proficient at reading than proficient.
Statewide, just 15.9% of Hispanic or Latino third-grade students were reading at grade level. In 252 school districts out of 267 with reading proficiency data for Hispanic or Latino students, a higher percentage of students were not proficient at reading than were proficient. Nine school districts had no Hispanic or Latino third graders reading at grade level.
Third-grade literacy as a predictor of academic success
A report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation warns about the negative effects of a student’s inability to read effectively by the end of third grade.
The research shows a student’s likelihood to graduate high school can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by their reading skill at the end of third grade. By the beginning of fourth grade, students transition from learning to read to reading to learn. According to the Children’s Reading Foundation, if a student struggles to read at grade level by this critical point, up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible.
The authors warn that “if we don’t get dramatically more children on track as proficient readers, the United States will lose a growing and essential proportion of its human capital to poverty, and the price will be paid not only by individual children and families, but by this entire country.”
The price paid by the individual for poor third-grade literacy is lower earning potential. The median annual earnings of adults ages 25 through 34 who had not completed high school were lower than the earnings of those with higher levels of educational attainment, according to data from the Census Bureau’s 2017 Current Population Survey,.
The unemployment rate for high school dropouts was 13% compared to the 7% unemployment rate of those whose highest level of educational was a high school credential.
Society also pays a price for failing to prepare its students to read at grade level by the end of third grade. The National Center for Education Statistics reported during his or her lifetime, the average high school dropout cost the economy approximately $272,000 compared to individuals who complete high school because of “lower tax contributions, higher reliance on Medicaid and Medicare, higher rates of criminal activity, and higher reliance on welfare.”
It’s time Illinoisans took note of the poor proficiency rates plaguing the state’s schoolchildren. There is more at stake than bad grades for young Illinoisans who are struggling to learn vital literacy skills in their early school years. Elementary Illinois students need intervention now before their lack of childhood learning becomes a barrier to a high school diploma and higher earning potential, and a slide into poverty.