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MARSHALL -- In the past couple of years, Marshall Public Schools has taken a closer look at how some of its youngest students are learning to read.
Measures like teaching phonics are already having an effect for elementary school students, said Beth Ritter, director of teaching and learning at MPS.
During Monday's Marshall School Board meeting, Ritter went over testing data for the 2022-23 school year. Last year, third graders at MPS performed more than two percentage points above the state average on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) reading test, she said.
"When we saw this, we were very excited about it. This is my 20th year in the district and to be honest with you, I can't remember a year that third grade was above the state average. So this is a direct reflection to all of the work we're doing at the elementary level," Ritter said.
The third grade cohort was the first one that had phonics as part of their core reading instruction, she said.
Ritter noted that there was still work to do, as other grades taking the reading MCAs did not perform above the statewide average.
"We are aware of that, and doing many different things to meet the needs," she said.
Ritter said other assessment measures also showed that Marshall students were improving their reading skills after the district started using phonics in core reading instruction. A new assessment the district was using, DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), looked at how many students in kindergarten through fourth grade were meeting reading benchmarks at the beginning and the end of the school year. Students were improving their reading skills, she said.
"It's that direct reflection of that systematic and explicit phonic instruction that we're having," Ritter said."
In the graduating class of 2035 -- which would be this year's first grade class -- about 60% of students needed intensive reading support in the fall of the 2022-23 school year. This fall, only 34% of the class needed intensive support, Ritter said.
Students in the graduating classes of 2034, 2033, and 2032 all showed improvement, Ritter said. The class of 2034 went from having 43% of students needing intensive support last year to 24% this fall. The class of 2033 went from having 31% of students needing intensive support, down to 20% this year, and the class of 2032 went from having 38% of students needing intensive support, down to 22% this fall.
"Do we have kids that still need intensive support? Yes," Ritter said. But that was where measures like having skill-based reading groups came into play. Although there was still work to do, she said, "It's exciting to know that it's working and the kids are retaining it."
Ritter said MPS also had some positive results in state math tests. In the 2022-23 school year, students in grades 7-11 performed above the state average. Students were also showing academic progress in math, she said. More MPS students improved or maintained their achievement levels in math than the statewide average, and fewer students than average lost progress, she said.
"You can see that our kids are doing well, and we are starting to see some of those results," Ritter said.