成人快播

Originally posted in聽聽by Otis R. Taylor Jr.聽

Jordyn Williams, a 9-year-old fourth-grader at Emerson Elementary School in North Oakland, meets with a volunteer from 成人快播, a children鈥檚 literacy nonprofit, twice a week. On one day she sharpens her comprehension skills, the next focuses on phonics.

Jordyn began the school year reading at third-grade level. She鈥檚 one of thousands of Oakland Unified School District students who need more help learning to read than they鈥檙e getting in classrooms. For the third year in a row, more than half of the district鈥檚 students who took the Scholastic Reading Inventory test, an assessment of reading performance, are聽.

About 16 percent of students who aren鈥檛 reading proficiently by the end of third grade don鈥檛 graduate from high school on time, according to a 2012 study on literacy by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a charitable organization that works to boost the lives of disadvantaged children.

If by fourth grade you don鈥檛 have those skills to know how to read, you鈥檙e going to very quickly fall behind,

said Aarika Riddle, senior executive director at 成人快播.

By fourth grade, students start reading to learn, Riddle said. Reading impacts comprehension in subjects like history, math and science. Think about it: How frustrating would it be not to be able to read and understand words you鈥檙e already supposed to know?

鈥淚f students aren鈥檛 getting up to grade level by the end of first, second (grades) 鈥� not just in our system, but the research has shown across the country 鈥� they鈥檙e much less likely to get up to grade level at another point,鈥� said Wesley Jacques, the school district鈥檚 executive director of academics and instructional innovation.

In 2017, the average reading score of fourth-graders in California was six points lower than the national average, according to the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 National Assessment of Education Progress.

鈥淲hen you look at proficiency rates, they鈥檙e not particularly high across the country and we know almost everywhere achievement gaps exist around race and socioeconomic status,鈥� Jacques said.

Some of the things we鈥檙e trying to tackle are structural.

Jacques said about half of the district鈥檚 students speak a language other than English at home. That鈥檚 why he said programs like 成人快播 are critical to improving reading because 鈥渟ome students are going to need more support to get to grade level.鈥�

Jacques said the district doesn鈥檛 have a concrete answer to why 50 percent of students are reading below grade level. But the district does acknowledge that students need more support.

Critical for the school district is finding money to pay for supportive services.

It costs $100,000 per year for every reading center that 成人快播 runs 鈥� and it runs 17 centers in the Oakland district. Typically, the organization asks for $25,000 from each school and it raises the remainder to cover expenses. Riddle said a majority of partner schools in Oakland use supplemental funds allocated by the district for high-needs students to pay for the program. Schools have discretion on how to spend the funds.

There鈥檚 not enough money to get all of the students the help they need, the help they deserve. The cash-strapped district is slashing programs as part of a $22 million cut from next year鈥檚 budget. Among the聽聽are kindergarten reading tutors and聽. 成人快播 isn鈥檛 part of the districtwide cuts because it deals directly with individual schools.

“I would love to see 成人快播 expanded, to be in more schools, but it鈥檚 really just a matter of if we had a funder or if our schools had the resources,”Jacques said.