Overview
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Georgia Makes Reading by the End of Third Grade a Statewide PriorityGeorgia’s children are falling below—or barely meeting—the basic standard in reading by the end of third grade. Children who don’t learn to read by this milestone can’t read to learn in the fourth grade and beyond. The few strides we’ve made in Georgia to improve grade-level reading proficiency are ineffective because we’re not reaching every child and we’re not executing what we know we need to do. We are working together with state leaders and local stakeholders in an unprecedented 10-year collaborative initiative to close the literacy gap and raise the bar for academic success for all children in Georgia. B.J. Walker, senior fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS), is a champion of Georgia’s unprecedented endeavor to bring systems together to ensure that all children can read on grade level by the end of third grade. Good readers are more likely to graduate from high school on time, enter the workforce equipped with the necessary skills to succeed, and go on to productive careers. Solutions to improving literacy are comprehensive and long-term. The Annie E. Casey Foundation offers four steps to address the reading crisis. Georgia KIDS COUNT supports those steps and offers promising strategies already at work to improve and support literacy for Georgia’s children and families.
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