Students At and Above Grade Level for Reading in Grade 3 Graduate from High School at Higher Rates Than Students Below Grade Level
Learning to read is one of the most important skills learned during the elementary school years. Reading represents the major foundational skill for school-based learning, and reading ability is strongly related to opportunities for academic and vocational success. A critical transition takes place during elementary school—from learning to read up to third grade to reading to learn in fourth grade. Students who are not reading at grade level in third grade begin having difficulty comprehending the written material that is a central part of the educational process in the grades that follow.
Researchers at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago used longitudinal administrative data to examine the relationship between third-grade reading level and educational outcomes. Using third-grade scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), they grouped a focus cohort of 26,000 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students into those reading below grade level (0-24th national percentile), at grade level (25th-74th national percentile) and above-grade level (75th-100th national percentile). They found evidence that students who were at and above grade level in third grade graduate from high school and attend college at higher rates than their peers who were below grade level.
Approximately 45 percent of students whose third-grade reading scores were below grade level graduated from high school in 5 years, compared to more than 60 percent of students who read at grade level in third grade and nearly 80 percent of students who read above grade level in third grade. In other words, nearly 55 percent of below-grade-level students, 38 percent of at-grade-level students, and 20 percent of above-grade-level students did not graduate from high school.
Researchers also examined other factors that impact students’ trajectories—individual attributes, such as race, sex, special education classification, and poverty status; and experiences, such as placement in foster care and the high school a student attends; which might affect school performance. Accounting for these differences between students, the research team found that third-grade reading is a significant predictor of eighth-grade reading achievement, which is a significant predictor of ninth-grade course performance, which ultimately predicts high school graduation and college attendance. Given the importance of ninth-grade performance in predicting graduation and college attendance, children who are below grade level in third grade but catch up by ninth grade have a better prognosis for their future educational outcomes than those who continue to lag.
Although the correlational study cannot make the claim that third-grade reading ability determines the likelihood of high school graduation and college attendance, it does suggest that supporting struggling readers as early as possible in their educational careers will help substantially to bolster their success in school, especially if interventions can support students before ninth grade—a critical year in a student’s educational trajectory.