Who
The Mississippi Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a network comprised of local civic leaders, parents, philanthropists, school officials, policymakers, researchers, healthcare providers, business leaders, and community organizations who are leading community-driven efforts to address major barriers to third-grade reading proficiency – school readiness, chronic absence, and summer learning loss – especially for low-income families.
Third-grade reading proficiency is a critical milestone that many children do not achieve, especially those from backgrounds of poverty. Third grade marks the point where learning shifts – no longer are children solely “learning to read” – they are must now “read to learn.”
The MS Campaign seeks to help communities align, stack, and strengthen existing resources to create, extend, and widen initiatives related to school readiness, school attendance, and summer learning. The goal is to have community-driven and community-specific solutions to problems or barriers that have been identified. The Campaign is not a quick fix or magic bullet, but rather an organizing framework to open lines of communication and bolster working relationships between various community groups and organizations.
Why
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading focuses on an important predictor of school success and high school graduation – grade-level reading by the end of third grade. When children do not read on grade-level by the end of third grade, they are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2010), and those who do not graduate from high school are 3.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers who do (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010).
Nationally, almost 2/3 of 4th graders (68%) and 8th graders (71%) scored below proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2022). In Mississippi, 70% of 4th graders and 78% of 8th graders scored below proficient. To make matters worse, 4 out of 5 children from poverty miss the critical milestone of reading on grade-level by the end of third grade. Mississippi can and must do better!
While schools must provide effective teaching for all children in every classroom every day, the MS Campaign for Grade-Level Reading believes schools cannot succeed alone. By partnering with schools and engaging parents and communities to mobilize efforts to reduce barriers in school readiness and school attendance, as well as to increase access to summer learning, children can reach their full potential and be more successful in school and in life.