South Dakota
South Dakota schools are working to drive literacy rates back up
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) – South Dakota ranks 11th in the nation in literacy rates; that high ranking may not last. Post-pandemic, rates continue to drop.
According to the National Literacy Institute, illiteracy has become so prevalent that 130 million Americans cannot read a simple story to their children. Reading is the backbone of anything that you want to do in life. Kids who struggle to read not only fall behind in school but can also fall behind emotionally and socially as well.
“So, if you’re not reading well, you start to look around and think ‘Why is this so hard for me when that person over there, my friend, is done way ahead of me.’ So, then it starts to really work on a child’s sense of who they are,” says Coralee Alley, a school psychologist.
Kids who continue to struggle will eventually find other ways to survive, which can cause disturbances and anxious behavior.
“A lot of times when reading is a struggle day after day, about middle school, you can start to see, or earlier, some really more interfering behaviors,” Alley continues.
South Dakota maintains a high national reading average but after the pandemic, schools have noticed a steady drop in reading rates. Now, kids reading at basic levels are seen reading at below-basic levels.
To combat this, kids are now getting ahead by starting to read earlier.
“We start with early literacy, and we offer story times that engage the kids with songs, puppets, and a variety of stories with various themes. We also offer reading initiatives where it motivates kids to read at home and we make these custom tracking charts like a thousand books before kindergarten. Summer and winter reading, and they get proud tracking their accomplishments and turning them in for prizes, Laurinda Tapper from the Rapid City Public Library explains.
There are 5 major steps kids should take when it comes to mastering reading: language development, comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, and application
A major way to help your child get better at reading is simply by reading to them. Having physical books in the area can impact a child’s reading ability.
“Kids model behavior, right? They model their peers’ behavior; they model the adults’. Kids who live in homes where books are laid out say they see people reading, are like 60% more likely to be a good reader as they get older,” Alley concludes.
It is important to know what is behind the child’s difficulty, to take the right steps to get them into reading.
“The most important thing besides finding what interests them is to read at the right level. So, if they are reading something too easy, they are not going to grow in their literacy, but if they read something too difficult it’s going to discourage reading,” says Tapper.
House Bill 1022 would provide the South Dakota Department of Education with $6 million for a four-year statewide teacher training effort in the science of reading (SOR), an intensive approach to reading instruction at the elementary level that relies in part on phonics, or using sounds within words rather than letters to help children read.
Copyright 2024 KEVN. All rights reserved.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – Students at South Dakota Mines heard Wednesday from retired four-star general Maryanne Miller about her journey to the highest ranks of the U.S. military.
Miller is a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general. She is the only member of the Air Force Reserve ever to be promoted to this level.
She spoke about finding greatness and living a life of fulfillment. Her stories came from her time in the Air Force and as a volunteer for Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity.
“We so much get focused on what is our next step in life, what’s the next career move, how do we make ourselves better in our career, and we forget about how do we make ourselves better as a human being,” Miller said. “Because they have to go tandem. If it’s not tandem, you’re going to get off track.”
Miller was commissioned in 1981 and rose through the ranks before becoming a four-star general in 2018. She was the only woman serving as a four-star officer in the military at the time. She retired in 2020 after serving for almost 40 years.
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South Dakota
USDA to offer distaster assistance to South Dakota agriculture producers impacted by winter storms
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering financial and technical assistance to South Dakota farmers and livestock producers who may have been impacted by the recent winter storms.
“I encourage impacted producers to contact their local USDA Service Center to report losses and learn more about program options available to assist in their recovery from crop, land, infrastructure, and livestock losses and damages.” said Richard Fordyce, Production and Conservation Under Secretary.
FSA’s Emergency Conservation Program and Emergency Forest Restoration Program can assist landowners with financial assistance to restore damaged land and conservation structures or forests.
“Our staff will work one-on-one with landowners to make assessments of the damages and develop methods that focus on effective recovery of the land.” said Jessica Michalski, Acting NRCS State Conservationist in South Dakota.
For more information about the disaster assistance program, click here.
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, left, and Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen unveil a plaque for retired U.S. Navy Capt. E. Royce Williams in the Hall of Honor at the Capitol in Pierre on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Meghan O’Brien/South Dakota Searchlight)
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) — There’s a new name in the South Dakota Hall of Honor at the state Capitol building.
One-hundred-year-old South Dakota native and retired U.S. Navy Capt. E. Royce Williams was celebrated at a Wednesday ceremony where a plaque honoring him was unveiled, although Williams did not attend.
“In spite of being outnumbered and facing incredible danger, Captain Williams engaged the enemy with courage and skill,” said Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden. “Our state has always had a strong tradition of service, and Captain Williams is the very best of that tradition.”
President Donald Trump awarded Williams the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest military honor, at the State of the Union address earlier this year. The medal honors actions by Williams that had been classified for decades.
“His story was secret for over 50 years, he didn’t even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew,” Trump said during the speech in February. “But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.”
On Nov. 18, 1952, over Korean coastal waters during the Korean War, then-Lt. Williams, from Wilmot, South Dakota, led three F9F Panthers against seven Soviet MiG-15s. He disabled three enemy jets and damaged a fourth.
The Soviet jets, according to the U.S. Naval Institute, were “superior to the F9F in almost every fashion.” The mission was the only direct overwater combat between U.S. Navy fighters and Soviet fighters during the Cold War.
Williams, one of 11 Medal of Honor recipients from South Dakota, now lives in California. The Hall of Honor at the South Dakota Capitol is located in the hallway that visitors enter immediately after going through security.
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