Thousands of MI Third Graders May Not Make It To Fourth Grade

Third grade elementary students all across West Michigan have been getting tested for reading, and many will be getting held back from fourth grade this year.

I think because of the pandemic, we are finally seeing some of the negative impact on kids not being in school, and especially with 3rd graders and their reading ability.

Even many kids were having online school at home, these were not full days plus some parents were working from home and that had to be a nightmare trying to do your job plus make sure your kid is doing everything they are supposed to.

My son is in second grade and every day during the pandemic I would ask him about school and he was saying, they just keep going over the stuff we already learned last year and I'm not learning nothing new. The one good thing, is even though he is just in second grade, his reading skills are very solid.

According to WOOD, close to 3,000 students that are in third grade has a letter sent to their parents saying due to low M-STEP test scores that there is a possibility of their kids being held back a year.

Michigan has a law for third graders called the Read By Third Grade Law that specifically states that kids can be stopped from moving on to fourth grade if their reading test scores are a year behind.

If you are one of the parents that received a letter you can reach out to your child's school and make a request that your kid not get held back but you only have 30 days to do so from when you received the letter. The school superintendent can still shoot your request down if your child's scores are too low.