Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Adds Tools To Reach 91% Early Literacy Goal by 2029

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools wants to raise the share of kindergarten through second-grade students who test at or above benchmark on early reading assessments. The target is to jump from 67% in 2023 to 91% by 2029. Last school year, the district fell short of its goal. But officials say they're on track this year.

Hidden Valley Elementary School hosted a family practice night in February. Parents learned how to help their kids get ready for the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills test at home. People call it DIBELS.

DIBELS is an early reading test kindergarteners through third graders take three times a year in North Carolina. Malia, a kindergarten student, will take her end-of-year DIBELS later this spring.

"If I know where she's at, I can go a lot farther as we can go. I know consistency is what really works. The more I work with her, the better she gets," said Barbara Lowery, who attended the event for her great-great niece, to Spectrum Local News.

"It's important for them to come in the building, see their kids' data, know what the test is, and then I'm going to take these resources home to be able to practice, so I know the skills that you need to work on and that empowers the parent," said Hidden Valley Elementary Principal Erin Barksdale Coles.

This year, the district added progress monitoring cycles between benchmark assessments. Teachers and instructional leaders use a dashboard to track how individual students and groups are doing.

"The teacher can now say, 'Hey, with our progress monitoring windows, I know I need seven more kids to meet our goal,'" said Barksdale Coles.

Last school year, the student outcome was 72%. That missed the 75% annual target. CMS scored higher than the state average last year for first and second graders.

The state had an average of 70% of first graders perform at or above benchmark on the DIBELS test. For second graders, 66% met or exceeded the benchmark last school year.

"We have to build strong foundations of readers and learners in K-2 as they get ready to come into third grade and beyond," said Barksdale Coles.

Elsa Leiva and her family are excited to keep helping their first grader learn at home. "These programs are good to teach you how to help your child at home and at the same time it teaches you things you maybe didn't know," said Leiva.