Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

Children who do not master reading by the third grade have a much lower chance of graduating high school by the age of 19, according to an April 2011 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The study calculates high school graduation rates for children at different reading skill levels and with different poverty rates.

Low-income students who are not proficient readers by the third grade are at the highest risk of not graduating, according to the report. Among low-income children, 26 percent of the weak readers did not graduate high school by age 19, compared to 89 percent of their reading-proficient peers. Overall, 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor.

The study also found that graduation rates for black and Hispanic students who had not mastered reading by the third grade lagged far behind those for white students with the same reading skills.

The data are from a database of 3,975 students born between 1979 and 1989. The children’s progress was tracked using the Peabody individual Achievement Test.

Read the report (pdf).