Page 2 | ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding
©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding | Page 3
The First Five Years Impact Success in School and Life
220
240
200
years
year
Grade
Level
year
years
years
180
160
140
NWEA RIT Scale
Birth through Age 5
Kindergarten through 10th Grade
High School
Dropout Rate
University
Enrollment
+
2
+
1
-
1
-
2
-
3
GL
6
%
7
%
10
%
26
%
45
%
55
%
81
%
44
%
25
%
12
%
<3
%
<2
%
01
23
41
23
45
67
8910
K
Every year 40 percent of children walk into kindergarten one-to-three years behind.
These students struggle to catch up. Sadly, most of them never do.
There is something YOU can do to help children succeed.
A child’s learning from birth to age 5 is critical; it determines their
kindergarten starting point. Students who enter kindergarten behind
have a monumental undertaking to catch up with their classmates.
This chart represents the reading scores of 2.3 million students
nationwide, based on real data from the Northwest Evaluation
Association – so this isn’t a projection.
As students progress through school, they typically only make one
year of academic growth for each year in school. For those behind,
it’s extremely hard to catch up because they need to achieve their
normal year of growth PLUS another year of growth or more.
So for students who enter kindergarten one-to-three years behind
(the yellow, orange and red bands) it is very difficult to make
sufficient progress to move up even ONE level without a massive
amount of intervention.
All children can and will improve, but for those who enter
kindergarten behind, around 75 percent will never catch up to their
classmates.
THIS MEANS EACH CHILD’S KINDERGARTEN
STARTING POINT MATTERS!
The data is grouped into colored bands:
Students who enter kindergarten one-to-two years ahead
are shown by the blue and teal bands
Students entering at grade level are shown in green; and
Students entering kindergarten one-to-three years behind
are represented by the yellow, orange and red bands.