Teachers decry ‘learning loss’ over summer

Idaho’s elementary teachers spend the entire school year trying to teach kids reading skills and increase their scores on the Idaho Reading Indicator test. They make some progress, and then students leave school for summer break.

When they return to school in the fall, it’s almost like teachers are starting over.

Post Falls’ Barney Brewton describes it as “summer learning loss.” If parents don’t read to their children during the summer months, or if students don’t continue to read on their own, they don’t do as well on the test.

Scores released by the State Department of Education on Wednesday showed that was the case for many local school districts. Although scores have generally increased from fall to fall during the past five years, students typically didn’t do as well this fall as they did a grade earlier this spring.

The scores showed only half of the state’s kindergartners entered school reading at grade level. Idaho’s first-graders scored much better, with 81 percent at grade level. Nearly 60 percent of the state’s second-graders scored at grade level and 54 percent of third-graders did.

Compared with scores at the end of last school year, scores dropped 10 percent when students left first grade and entered second grade. There was an even more obvious “summer learning loss” for last year’s second-graders. While 69 percent were reading at grade level as they left second grade in the spring, only 54 percent tested at grade level as they began third grade this fall.

First-graders scored significantly higher this fall than students in other grades.

“That first-grade test is really easy,” said Brewton, director of elementary programs for Post Falls. “It’s an easy test. Kids do very well on it.”

The spring and winter reading indicator tests get increasingly difficult, Brewton said. Often, as the school year moves along, students in the first grade don’t fare as well on it.

Lakeland Assistant Superintendent Ron Schmidt agreed that there are questions about the difficulty of the test.

The State Department of Education said the fall test results are used to identify students who need more help in reading. In the Coeur d’Alene School District, a kindergartner’s reading scores factor into whether the child will be included in the district’s limited all-day kindergarten program.

Students who enter school struggling attend a full day of kindergarten until they improve.

Schmidt said Lakeland uses the fall scores to find areas where students need extra help. Teachers share the scores with parents during parent-teacher conferences and try to make plans for improvement.

The district has started programs to help students get a boost in reading skills before they even start school. Lakeland’s Early Education Program is a preschool program that runs February through May for students who will enter kindergarten in the fall.

The children in LEEP return to school for a week in August for a refresher before school begins. There’s also a summer school program for students in grades K-5 who need help in reading.

For students in grades K-3, who are tested on the Idaho Reading Indicator, early education plays a big role in how well students do, Brewton said.

Parents can help by reading to their children at an early age, he said, and keep their minds active during the summer months.

“It’s hard to make up that lost ground from the first five years,” Brewton said.