Fewer freshmen reading at or below fourth-grade level
By Diette Courrégé
Lowcountry high school freshmen improved their reading skills during eighth grade, but about one out of every six still reads at a fourth-grade level or worse.
The three biggest local school districts - Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester 2 - each saw a lower number of this year's freshmen reading at or below a fourth-grade level at the end of last year compared to the beginning. The trend held true among every school within these districts.
The Post and Courier reported earlier this year the grade-level reading skills for this year's freshmen based on their fall test scores from last school year. The fall scores, which were the most up-to-date at that time, revealed one out of every five Berkeley and Charleston rising ninth-graders couldn't read better than a fourth-grader and about one out of every seven Dorchester 2 rising freshmen had the same problem.
The newspaper requested the same students' spring test scores to see whether a year of instruction made a difference, and the results showed fewer number of students reading at or below a fourth-grade level.
Read more in Sunday's editions of The Post and Courier.
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Comments
Daxos (anonymous) says...
OK, call me stupid but how do you make it to the eighth grade but read at a fourth grade level? Granted I was educated in the S.C. government school system but aren't the fifth, sixth AND seventh grades in between the fourth and eighth? How do you make it past all of those grades?
I guess they just keep getting passed to keep the numbers up so the state and federal money keeps rolling in; never mind that Student A can't read but we got a new computer lab. Every teacher that "educates" the fourth grade level reader that makes it to the eighth grade should be fired and have their teaching certificates revoked.
This article and the school system that it represents is why my wife and I both work, never go on vacation, drive a nine year old mini-van and a 21 year old sedan, rarely go out to eat, do not have cable and LIVE WELL WITHIN OUR MEANS so that our children can go to private school.
Trust me, the sacrifice is worth it.
August 29, 2009 at 11:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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