How to understand California third-grade reading scores

Third grade is the first year California gives students a statewide English language arts test. The school result shows how many tested third graders met or exceeded the state's target.

Why statewide testing begins in third grade

Federal law requires statewide reading and math tests every year from grade 3 through grade 8 and once in high school. California uses the Smarter Balanced test for this purpose.

Younger students still take classroom and district reading assessments. Those local assessments help teachers choose what to teach next, but schools do not all use the same test. The third-grade result is the first reading measure based on the same state standards and score levels across California public schools.

What the test covers

California calls the subject English language arts, or ELA. It includes reading, writing, listening, and research skills. The grade 3 proficiency percentage combines performance across those areas.

If a school shows 52% grade 3 reading proficiency, about 52 out of every 100 tested third graders scored Proficient or Advanced. The percentage describes that year's third-grade group.

The students change each year. Next year's result will describe a new group of third graders. A pattern across several years gives a better picture of the school's direction than one unusually high or low result. The California proficiency tracker shows those years together when public data are available.

Understanding your child's reading

Classroom work and skill-level assessments provide the detail needed for an individual child. A teacher can identify whether the child needs help with sound-letter links, decoding, reading smoothly, vocabulary, comprehension, or writing about a text.

These questions can make a teacher conversation more useful:

• Which reading skill needs the most work right now?
• What did my child do on the assessment or work sample that shows this?
• What instruction will they receive, and when will progress be checked again?
• What should we practice at home?

Useful practice at home

Read aloud stories and nonfiction that interest your child, including books they cannot yet read independently. Let them read appropriate text aloud too. Talk about unfamiliar words and ask them to point to the part of the text that supports an answer.

If reading remains hard, write down a few examples of words your child misreads or passages they have trouble explaining. Those observations give the teacher specific material to work with.

Sources

• California Department of Education: statewide assessment requirements
• California Smarter Balanced ELA and mathematics assessments
• Institute of Education Sciences: foundational skills to support reading for understanding
• Institute of Education Sciences: reading support for families of children in grades K-3