NEWSLETTER
Brownsville, Texas – are almost 5 pm on Friday, and Dolores S. Pérez is working hard in the Brownsville Public Library. It is also one of the people who have fun.
Pérez, known as Mrs. D for her students, sits on a table with one of the young students who play while applauding and singing as part of their lesson. The public school teacher stands out in a burned orange sweater, her curly hair adorned with a soft brown beret.
Pérez began giving the students at the time when the COVID-19 vaccine made it safe to meet in person. What began as a part -time concert for a couple of students in 2021 now keeps it occupied six days a week.
When it comes to the youngest students than tutor, those in the kindergarten to the fourth grade, Pérez says that everyone needs help with reading.
It is not her fault, she says, or the fault of her parents or even schools. It is just what happened during the first days of the pandemia, when the children were trapped at home and transmitting to school through a computer.
“There is nothing like an individual interaction with a human being,” says Pérez. “In the Zoom Class, you are only a small stain on the screen.”
Pérez is likely to remain busy in the predictable future, if the new federal data on the performance of students in reading are any indicator.
The 2024 results of the Nation's qualifications ticket, published last week by the National Education Statistics Center, show that for the third time in a row of fourth and eighth grade, the eighth grade reading scores have fallen into The biannual evaluation. The only score that exceeded the results of 2019 was Louisiana's performance in fourth grade reading.
The commissioner of NCES, Peggy Carr, described the “rise” trend during a town hall on the results in Washington, DC
“The reading story is discouraging, continuing decreases that began before the pandemic,” said Car. “The average scores are at the same level as 30 years ago. Students are not where we need or want them to be. “
Reading for the numbers
The average reading scores fell into two points for fourth and eighth grade students in 2024, standing at 215 and 258 respectively. That is from a maximum of fourth grade of 223 in 2015 and a maximum of eighth grade of 268 in 2013.
Carr caught attention to the wide gaps among the highest and lowest winners: the scores are decreasing faster among the students who fight the most.
The average reading scores of fourth and eighth grade students in the 90th percentile were not statistically different from 2022 to 2024, and the scores between the high flyers in both grades have remained quite stable in the last three decades.
The average fourth grade reading among students in the lower 10 percentile fell in four points to 158, which is 17 points lower than its best year in 2009.
The eighth grade students in the lower 10 percentile saw their average score at five points at 204, the lowest score since 1992 and 19 points lower than their best average.
The percentage of students who do not reach the basic achievement level Naep is growing. At the basic level, fourth grade students can Demonstrate skills How to use the context to obtain the meaning of words and identify a problem described in a passage. Eighth grade students should also be able to formulate an opinion based on the text and use details to answer specific questions.
Among fourth grade students nationwide, 40 percent failed to achieve Basic Naep reading skills. This proportion was even larger for some groups when it was broken down by the race, which represents more than half of the students who are Indian Hispanics, blacks and American or Native Alaska.
Among all eighth grade students, 33 percent failed to achieve domain of basic reading. The failure rate between Hispanic, black and native students was higher in more than 10 percentage points.
Before and after
Pérez's students come from all areas of life and schools, whether public, private, charter or home education.
The third and fourth grade student that Pérez's tutors would now have been in Kindergarten or Pre-K around the time of schools throughout the country were remote for the first time due to the pandemic. Those first school years are a critical moment for students to learn social skills, self -regulation and, in general, how to work in a classroom.
Students are also rebuilding the necessary work ethics to do it well at school, says Pérez. While I did not teach during the pandemic, he saw friends and family fight to replicate the way teachers motivate students to work.
“How would you qualify a child who is only sitting behind a computer?” Pérez says. “Here and there, they went out with their own by appearing and getting credit. All obtained an abbreviated learning version. “
Pérez says that his third and fourth grade students quickly are updated with individual support, where each lesson can adapt to their personal interests, depending on whether students are fond of history or go crazy for dinosaurs. But its tutoring services brand is not something that all children have access.
“Some parents have the means to get help, but I do think of all children whose parents not,” says Pérez. “They are more backward, and that is a large population. You need to read for almost everything in the world, in all other issues. It affects all aspects of your learning to be behind. “
First and second degree students commonly come to Pérez reading at the level of kindergarten, he says, and Pérez works with them in skills such as learning basic letters of letters, how to link words to make sentences and be able to answer: “What did I read? ?
Around a quarter of the students of Garden de Infantes to second grade, tutor in double language programs in English and Spanish. These English students have some additional challenges, says Pérez, when they learn to read and write in two languages with alphabets and superimposed sounds.
“For little little girls, everything is muddy, everything is a language,” she says.
Pérez offers an example: I could ask a student to write a phrase like: “Look at the child.” A child who grew up speaking Spanish at home can write “Yes”, using the letter that makes the length the sound in Spanish. Pérez will remind you that the twins create the vocal sound in “see”, which makes sense until it is time to spell a word like “happy.”
“It sounds like 'EE', but it is a 'y'”, Pérez has to explain.
“And they ask me: 'Why?'” She continues with a smile. “It becomes fun for them, but that is where they have to dissect between the two languages. If a thin gold chain has ever unbelled, this is how it is. ”
Early investment (childhood)
Steven Barnett, The senior founder and co -director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, says that the results of NAEP reading are not what someone wanted to see.
“Particularly because, for a while, we had made such good progress,” he says, “and seeing that the scores continue to decrease after efforts were made to try to compensate for the impacts of the pandemic, I think, it is especially disappointing.”
The Federal Government channeled millions of dollars in schools until recently, hoping to change the course of scores and keep students to the degree level.
Barnett says there is another solution, although with a considerable price, which can help reinforce students' achievement: high quality K programming with small classes and higher education talent.
Points out the success that your organization found coming out New Jersey Pre-K System for high poverty areas. The data show that the children who began the preprogram at 3 years obtained better results in the standardized eighth grade tests than the cohorts passed through approximately 10 points. That would more than compensate for the NaEEP Reading Ready between 2022 and 2024, argues Barnett.
“This is not a simple or cheap solution,” he says. “It is almost like adding two more years of school in terms of cost for the system, but it shows that we could change things. They look during this period of time when our Naep scores have been decreasing, and there have almost no changes in the number of children who go to preschool, much less high quality. “
The preschool is also vital at a time when parents are decreasing, says Barnett, and less parents say they read at home with their children in the last five years. Pre-K programs establish a basis for reading, writing and social skills for children, adds: It is where young children grow their vocabularies and learn to be part of a classroom.
“Concentrating on something that someone else wants you to concentrate, like a teacher, it is a skill that you have to develop,” says Barnett. “When you talk to teachers about children, one of the biggest problems is that children do not have these skills, they do not have the language. The next cohorts that arrive in Neap have had them at a lower level, so I hope they get worse even more than we do something to change this. ”
