READING SCORES

Experience tells us that when we learn a task, practice at that task makes it easier and we get better at doing it. After several years of doing that task our performance level should have gotten much better. Logic tells us that children who are taught to read should perform better and have higher reading scores as they move to higher grades. Reading scores should be better in the eighth grade than in the second grade. Statistics of our state reading scores show the opposite. Logic tells us that our children were never taught to read. Our children perform better in the second grade because words are simple, there are pictures to give them clues, and most are capable of learning. As reading gets more complicated and there are no pictures to aid them, reading scores begin a rapid decline to disturbing levels by eighth grade. We are in denial of facts if we do not conclude that reading is at the core of our problems in education in Mississippi , including many discipline problems, performance below grade level, and dropouts. Our children are looking to our state leaders for help. Will we have the compassion necessary to help the least and most vulnerable learn to read and allow them to be successful and productive citizens or will those of us who read continue in denial? Time will show our true colors, Mississippi .