We Need To Talk About Literacy Among Black Children
The rates are low, and they don’t need to be.
“In K–3 [grade]children are learning to read, and in 4–12 children are reading to learn.” (Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990)
This is a quote I learned while training to become a Reading Specialist for 1st-3rd graders. While more recent educational research has drawn this assertion into question, the impact of this statement has had a lasting effect on the educational landscape. Many students who do not become confident and capable readers within that K-3 window are left behind and never catch up. Many of those students are Black.
A 2017 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that just 18 percent of Black eighth-graders reach reading “proficiency.” And in 2015 NAEP found that only 17 percent of Black 12th graders were proficient at reading. (Source)
So what, exactly, is going on?
Common instruction methods are ineffective for many students.
When it comes to reading, what works is a simultaneous mix of two things at early grade levels: systematic instruction in phonics, and starting to build the kind of knowledge students will need in high school and beyond. What doesn’t work is what…
