Your Child's Report Card Says They're Behind in Reading: What It Means and What to Do

Short answer

On a standards-based report card, 3 is the goal: "meets" or "at standard". A 2 in reading, often called "approaching", means your child is close to the grade-level standard but not there yet. A 1, called "below standard" or "needs support", means a bigger gap. Edmonds School District in Washington, for example, defines a 1 as performing a year or more below grade-level standard. The mark compares your child with a grade-level standard, not with classmates, and it is not a diagnosis. To get something useful out of the mark, do three things. Ask the teacher which assessment it is based on and what the scores were. Time your child reading an unpracticed grade-level passage aloud for one minute and compare the result, as a rough guide, with the Hasbrouck-Tindal fall or winter norms below. If you suspect a learning disability, or the scores stay low with extra help in place, ask the school in writing for an evaluation. You don't have to wait for the extra help to run its course. This guide was written by Readigo, an iOS reading-practice app for children ages 6–12. It draws on the report card keys of three US school districts, the oral reading fluency norms Hasbrouck and Tindal published at the University of Oregon in 2017, and the federal special-education rules.

What "approaching" and "below" mean on a report card

A standards-based report card doesn't give one letter grade for reading. It lists several reading skills and marks each one, usually on a 1–4 scale. The labels differ from district to district, so the key printed on your child's card has the final word. Here is how three districts word the same scale:

Jeffco's key uses words rather than numbers, so its column is lined up by meaning. Sources: Edmonds, East Ramapo, Jeffco. A few things stand out in these keys. A 3 is the target. Edmonds defines it as performing at grade-level standard, East Ramapo as meeting the benchmark for the marking period. A 4 means beyond the standard, so a reading report full of 3s is a good report. "Approaching" is not failing. Edmonds describes a 2 as close to, but below, grade-level standard: your child is partway there. A 2 in October tells you less than a 2 that is still there in March. Check what the mark is measured against. East Ramapo grades against the benchmark for each marking period, so a fall 2 there means behind the fall expectation. If your district's key doesn't say, ask the teacher whether the mark is about where your child should be now or by the end of the year. Jeffco also states that its marks compare each child with the standards, not with other children. Find the reading line that is low. Edmonds, for example, splits reading into foundational skills; comprehending and interpreting texts; analyzing, evaluating and using texts; and effort. A low mark in foundational skills (sounding out words, reading accurately and smoothly) calls for different help than a low mark in comprehension. IE (insufficient evidence) means the teacher didn't have enough completed assessments to give a mark, so ask why. NF means the skill wasn't a focus this grading period. Neither one is a low mark.

What a reading mark is usually based on

Teachers build the mark from classwork and from the reading assessments the school gives every child. Jeffco, for example, says teachers compare a body of evidence from student work with grade-level proficiency. Many schools also screen every child's reading at the beginning, middle and end of the year with a tool like one of these. Ask which one your school uses, because each measures something different.

These tools answer different questions. DIBELS and Acadience are built as quick screeners, meant to flag the children who may need more help. DIBELS scores come in color bands. In its published benchmark goals, yellow means strategic support (some risk) and red means intensive support (at risk). i-Ready and MAP Growth are adaptive tests a child takes alone on a screen. They show how your child answers reading questions, but nobody hears them read aloud. A letter level from a leveled assessment describes which books suit your child for teaching. The Fountas & Pinnell blog, from the publisher of the A–Z levels, says reading levels have no place on report cards, so if your child's card shows a letter, treat it as a rough teaching level, not a grade. If the screener and the report card disagree, ask why. A child can score in the core-support band in the fall and still get a 2 in comprehension, or the other way round.

Check fluency at home against the fall and winter norms

Oral reading fluency is the one part of the school's data you can repeat at home in a few minutes. It is the number of words a child reads correctly in one minute on a passage they haven't practiced, written WCPM (words correct per minute). Hasbrouck and Tindal's 2017 norms, compiled from three widely used assessments, give the benchmarks for the beginning (fall), middle (winter) and end (spring) of each grade from 1st to 6th. How to do it: 1. Pick a grade-level passage your child hasn't read before, long enough that they won't finish it in a minute (a page or two of a chapter book). 2. Ask them to read it aloud for one minute. Don't correct them while they read. 3. Count the errors: words misread, skipped or read out of order, and any word you had to say after a 3-second pause. 4. Words read minus errors is the WCPM. If your child finishes early, multiply the words read correctly by 60 and divide by the seconds it took. 5. Repeat with two other passages on other days and average the three. One reading on its own is noisy. The fall norms come from testing at the start of the school year and the winter norms from the middle. Compare an October or November score with the fall column; by then a typical reader is somewhere between the two figures.

Words correct per minute, from Hasbrouck and Tindal (2017). 1st grade has no fall benchmark in the source. Reading speed by age charts every term up to the 90th percentile and explains what the numbers mean at each age; the WCPM chart by grade has the end-of-year figures. Treat a home score as a rough guide. The norms come from standardized test passages (DIBELS 6th Edition, DIBELS Next and easyCBM), and Hasbrouck and Tindal left out a fourth test because its scores came out significantly different, perhaps because of how its passages were built. A harder or easier passage at home can move the number a lot. The 50th percentile is a typical reader for that time of year, and a quarter of children score at or below the 25th-percentile figure. The report doesn't set one cut-off score. It says students below benchmark are at possible risk of reading difficulties and good candidates for further diagnostic assessment, meaning a closer look at which skills need work. Your school's screener has its own benchmark goals (DIBELS publishes its goals), so ask where your child's score falls on them. A score near the 50th percentile next to a low report card mark points the other way: fluency may be fine, and the gap may be in comprehension. Ask the teacher which skill the mark is about. Fluency isn't all of reading. A child can read quickly and still miss the meaning, so after the minute, ask your child to tell you what happened in the passage. For a broader home check without a stopwatch, the 5-question reading level test suggests a reading stage and a next step.

Questions to ask the teacher

Take the report card and these questions to the conference: - Which assessment is the reading mark based on, and what were the scores? - Is the mark about where my child should be now, or by the end of the year? - Which part of reading is the gap: sounding out words, reading smoothly, or understanding? - Is my child getting extra reading help? How often, in what size group, and on which skill? - How will you track progress, and when will we look at it together? - What should we practice at home? The full checklist, grouped by topic and with what to bring, is in questions to ask your child's teacher about reading.

When to ask the school for an evaluation

A single 2 in the fall may only need a closer look and some extra practice. Consider asking for an evaluation when: - the school's screener puts your child in the intensive-support band; - the report card gives a 1 in foundational skills, which Edmonds, for example, defines as a year or more below grade-level standard; - extra help has been in place for a while and the progress-monitoring scores aren't moving; - you see the same struggle at home: guessing at words, avoiding reading, reading that stays slow and effortful. Under the federal special-education law (IDEA), a parent can ask the school for an initial evaluation at any time, to find out whether a child has a disability. If the school agrees, it asks for your informed consent, and the evaluation must be done within 60 days of that consent, or within your state's own timeline if it sets one. If the school refuses, it must tell you in writing why, and you can challenge that decision through a due-process hearing or a state complaint. Many schools start with extra help through a tiered system called RTI or MTSS. That's reasonable, but in 2011 the U.S. Department of Education told states that an RTI process cannot be used to delay or deny an evaluation, and that a school shouldn't reject a referral because the child hasn't been through RTI. Put your request in writing, date it, and keep a copy. An evaluation looks at whether a disability is behind the difficulty and what help your child needs. A report card mark, a screener band or a home fluency score can't diagnose dyslexia or any other learning disability. For the warning signs to watch for at home, see how to know if your child is reading below grade level.

What to do at home in the next few weeks

While the school works out its part, home practice is the part you control. Listen to your child read aloud on most days, in short sessions. The National Reading Panel found that guided repeated oral reading, with guidance from teachers, peers or parents, had a significant and positive impact on word recognition, fluency and comprehension across a range of grade levels. In practice: - Use a short text your child can read with few errors, at or a little below the level the teacher suggests. - Read it aloud first, so they hear how it should sound. - Have them read it to you. When they misread a word, point to it and let them try again. If they're stuck, say the word and move on. - Have them read the same passage two or three times over the week. Notice whether it gets smoother. If it doesn't, the text may be too hard. - Keep reading harder books aloud to them, so stories and new words don't have to wait for their own reading. Once a month, run the one-minute check on a new passage and write the score down with the date. A dated record is easier to discuss at the next conference than an impression. If you can't sit and listen every evening, an app that listens while your child reads aloud, such as Readigo, can cover some of those sessions and note the words your child stumbles on. It doesn't replace the school's extra help or an evaluation. Tell the teacher what you practice at home so the two line up.

The bottom line

A 2 in reading opens a conversation with the school. Find out which test it comes from and which skill it's about, check fluency at home against the right season, practice reading aloud on most days, and agree on a date to look at the numbers again with the teacher. If the numbers don't move once help is in place, or you suspect a learning disability, ask for an evaluation in writing.