West Alabama school districts see dramatic improvements in third grade reading proficiency

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) – Two public school districts in west Alabama have seen dramatic improvements in reading proficiency among the third graders in their systems.

In the Tuscaloosa City Schools district, school leaders say they’ve seen a 15% improvement in reading proficiency among their third graders throughout the district.

Martin Luther King Elementary School is a prime example of how it all came together. School district officials say it was a combination of hard work, commitment and dedication.

In practical terms, here’s what happened. They identified the reading deficits, and changed the focus from learning to read to reading to learn.

Educators developed a personal plan for each student, a dose of regular instruction with after-school tutoring.

“But we didn’t stop there. We wanted to make sure more work was needed to be done, so those students were afforded an opportunity to stay after the school and get more remediation, more high dosage tutoring based on their specific goals they need to master, so it was not like a cookie-cutter approach. It was basically making sure that we were diagnosing what those issues were for each individual student and correcting those behaviors,” said Tuscaloosa City Schools Deputy Superintendent Dr. James Pope.

The very same story played out in Eutaw in Greene County. School leaders there say an astounding 90% of their third graders are reading at or above grade level, up from 42% last year, according to Superintendent Dr. Corey Jones.

Both school districts say the goal now for both of them is to grow that number to 100%.

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