By Haley Mitchell Godwin

The Luverne Journal

Reading scores for Alabama third graders for the 2021-22 school year were released Tuesday. This is the first public announcement of school-level reading scores since the state’s high stakes Literacy Act passed in 2019. The 2021-22 ACAP scores show that 22% of third graders in Alabama are not proficient readers.

In an effort to improve reading scores, the state of Alabama has taken several measures. However, the recently released scores show that Alabama students are still performing at about the same level reached in 2019. The Literacy Act was created to help improve reading in Alabama’s public schools and to ensure that students are reading on grade level by the end of third grade. Third graders not showing proficiency were to be held back to repeat the grade, but in early 2022, the Alabama Senate put a hold on that part of the law until the 2023-2024 school year due to COVID. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey approved the delay, as well.

State officials published a school-by-school and district-by-district view of reading scores from across the state. According to the reports, 78% of third grade students statewide were identified as proficient in reading.

Crenshaw County Schools, as a whole, scored 76.8% for being on or above grade level reading proficiency,
with 23.02% of students falling below grade level reading proficiency.

80.36% of third grade students at Luverne are at or above grade level reading proficiency. At Highland Home School, 67.44% of its students are on or above grade level reading, while Brantley topped the charts with 82.50% of third grade readers on or above grade level proficiency.

The full table of reading scores can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/h9n2d4hp.