The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Essential
research
on grade-level reading is a critical resource for the Campaign and its partners. Much of the Campaign’s work is driven by the research and recommendations in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2010 KIDS COUNT Special Report, Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters.

This extensively researched report on the causes and consequences of the grade-level reading crisis in the United States included four common-sense recommendations that form the basis of our work:

Recommendation
1

Develop a coherent system of early care and education that aligns, integrates, and coordinates what happens from birth through third grade so children are ready to take on the learning tasks associated with fourth grade and beyond.

Recommendation
2

Encourage and enable parents, families, and caregivers to play their indispensable roles as co-producers of good outcomes for their children.

Recommendation
3

Prioritize, support, and invest in results-driven initiatives to transform low-performing schools into high-quality teaching and learning environments in which all children, including those from low-income families and high-poverty neighborhoods, are present, engaged, and educated to high standards.

Recommendation
4

Find, develop, and deploy practical and scalable solutions to two of the most significant contributors to the under-achievement of children from low-income families: chronic absence from school and summer learning loss.

In addition, Double Jeopardy: How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. confirms that students who do not read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma than proficient readers. Poverty compounds the problem, both in terms of family income and for children who are growing up in concentrated poverty.

Our Research

Students not reading well in third grade are 4 times more likely to drop out.

Federal Funding

More than 100 federal funding sources can support early literacy programs.

State Resources

State Early Literacy Advisory Councils are developing early childhood systems.

Words Count

Talking and reading to very young children build skills for reading success.