District reading
scores reflect improvements
By DANA
DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Children in
Idaho are having trouble reading.
Without
understanding the issue, many who read an article in the Twin Falls
Times-News last week about reading scores in each Idaho school district
might have come to that erroneous conclusion.
In fact,
The Idaho Reading Indicator, given to all kindergarten through third grade
students in the fall, is only re-administered in the spring to those who
did not previously score at grade level.
In Blaine
County, for instance, spring scores show that in kindergarten, 41 percent
of the 58 percent of the class that was retested are now reading at grade
level. In first grade, 24 percent out of the 46 percent re-tested are now
reading at grade level. In second grade, 27 percent out of 57 percent
re-tested are at grade level. And in third grade, 34 percent of 59 percent
retested are now at grade level.
Statewide,
the number of students in the "at-risk" category of below-grade
level was diminished after the spring tests. The greatest progress was
made in kindergarten where below-grade-level readers dropped by 12
percent.
Blake
Walsh, Blaine County School District director for student services,
pointed out that the tests get harder from fall to spring since students
have progressed through the school year.
The real
value of IRI, he said, is the individual student data it provides. Those
students who took the second test were offered the opportunity to be in
summer school to further work on their reading ability and English
language proficiency.