Gov. Reynolds touts improvement among young readers

DES MOINES - Gov. Kim Reynolds kicked off a tour Tuesday marking the beginning of classes for the new school year by touting gains in reading scores among students in kindergarten through third grade.

Reynolds and Ryan Wise, director of the Iowa Department of Education, said 70 percent of the students met or surpassed statewide benchmarks during the 2016-17 school year - increasing 3 percent from fall 2016 to spring 2017.

That builds on a 4 percent increase during the 2015-16 school year, they said, calling the progress significant.

'We're seeing growth, we're seeing progress and so we need to continue to look at that and figure out how we can continue to scale that success with school districts across the state,” Reynolds told her weekly news conference, which was held at the Edmunds Fine Arts Academy in Des Moines - the first stop on her tour that coincides with Wednesday's opening of K-12 schools under a new state law. The governor and Wise also visited the Emmetsburg Community School District and plan stops in the Forest City, Central Springs and Garner-Hayfield-Ventura school districts.

State leaders are looking at long-term ways to strengthen Iowa's workforce talent pipeline, and Wise said one important early step is ensuring all students read proficiently by the end of third grade.

In 2012, Iowa adopted a major initiative to identify struggling readers and provide intensive intervention, he said. Now districts screen students' reading skills on an assessment three times a year, which helps teachers identify and intervene for students not reading at grade level.

'Early literacy is critical because success in school starts with the ability to read,” Wise said. 'Students who struggle to read early on are more likely to drop out of school, are less likely to pursue postsecondary education and training and less likely to earn a living wage.”

Legislators last session abandoned an earlier idea of forcing students to either repeat third grade if they were not reading at grade level or attending a summer reading program.

Reynolds said Tuesday there may be other ways to accomplish the goal of boosting reading skills.

Deborah Reed of the Iowa Reading Research Center said a number of Iowa's 333 school districts are continuing summer reading programs, but they've gone from a required approach to an option for helping students address their literacy needs. 'It's part of an array of interventions that might be provided by a school districts” and they work collaboratively to find ways to refine and redeliver instruction based on quality reading performance data.

Reynolds said she is focusing on reading, Iowa's Teacher Leadership and Compensation System and Iowa's STEM initiative during her school visits.

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