Reading scores stay on track for NC kindergarten through third graders

Two thirds of North Carolina kindergarten through third graders met reading test benchmarks at the end of the 2023-24 school year, about the same share as at the end of the last year.

But the scores are still much higher than in the year immediately following pandemic school closures.

That’s according to data from tests provided by Amplify and known as DIBELS 8. North Carolina is an outsized user of the test, although school systems in all 50 states use the test.

The data continue to show higher percentages of North Carolina students are meeting benchmark expectations, compared to test-takers nationwide.

The states uses DIBELS 8 to test about 439,000 kindergarten through third grade students. The test measures more basic and foundational reading skills — things emphasized in lower-grade levels — but not so much reading comprehension or fluency that kids are expected to have as they get older, Superintendent Catherine Truitt told the State Board of Education on Thursday. Third graders also take end-of-grade reading exams that test comprehension and fluency.

Truitt attributes much of the success to changes in how the state teaches reading, focusing on many reading skills not previously emphasized in classrooms.

At the kindergarten level, 73% of students met benchmark levels, along with 71% of first-graders, 65% of second-graders and 58% of third-graders.

Truitt said third-graders haven’t all benefitted from four years of the new reading methods and that third graders also have been to move on from learning some of the more foundational reading skills and into higher-level skills. She wants fourth and fifth grade students to also take the DIBELS 8 test to track those third graders’ progress, although the state is not currently funded to do that.