Michigan third-grade reading

With thousands of children facing the possibility of having to repeat third grade if state reading scores don’t improve, the stress on young students, teachers and parents will be considerable.

Bridge spoke with 29 Michigan teachers in a Facebook group about the read or flunk law that hits third-graders this year. They’re dubious the law will improve literacy but have plenty of other ideas.

With the state’s read-or-flunk law beginning this year, Michigan’s efforts to help young readers appear to be falling flat.

Results from the state’s annual standardized test, given to students in grades 3-8, show faint signs of improvement. See how state students overall performed in the tests given last spring, and look up your own school.

Michigan’s young students continue to struggle with basic reading proficiency. What would Michigan teachers do differently if they were in charge of state education policy?

Only three intermediate school districts out of 56 in Michigan are showing increases in third-grade reading. A leading educator asks for patience.

Parents care about improving Michigan schools. But they aren’t hung up on the “controversies” in Lansing’s education circles, according to a new poll.

More than 5,000 students may be flagged to repeat third grade under a new law intended to ensure solid reading skills at a key age. That number sounds high, but it could have been far higher.

Students from less advantaged families are more likely to be held back under Florida’s third-grade reading law than white, more affluent kids with the same low reading scores. A similar Michigan law begins this fall.

M-STEP results show 1-in-3 third-graders are not proficient in reading. The bad news extends across grades and subjects, impacting white, black and Hispanic students. What should state do now?

Detroit schools saw just a small fraction of its students post a passing score in English Language Arts and math. But new leaders say their changes are only now starting to be implemented.

Few would argue with Schuette’s point that Michigan’s public schools must vastly improve. We’re struggling, but are we the worst?

You’ve read the doom-and-gloom stories. But they fail to point out how well many Michigan students are doing.

Michigan needs to follow the path of leading states, with high-caliber training and support of principals and teachers in literacy instruction.

A new state law requires third-graders to repeat the grade if they are more than a year behind in reading. But the state test doesn’t yield that information.

Under a new law, in two years thousands of Michigan's third graders will flunk if they are more than a year behind in reading skills if the state can't turn current trends to the positive. How did this happen?

Bridge Magazine’s reading tool will show whether your child’s district is suffering third-grade reading declines, a trend that could leave plenty of future third graders to repeat the grade.

Absent changes to the state constitution, the pressure is on lawmakers to rescue our schools from the abyss

Some 1.5 million students attend some 3,000 public schools in Michigan. As academic performance has lagged, competing school reform proposals have sprouted like Michigan summer corn.

Many of today’s kindergarteners may eventually have to repeat third grade if their reading skills fall short. In West Michigan, 100 school districts have joined forces to boost early reading. The goal: to pass every student to fourth grade.