69% of Utah fourth-graders not reading at proficient level

Put yourself in the shoes of a 7- or 8-year-old. Your attention span is short, and your enthusiasm for homework is even shorter.

On top of that, think about all the kids whose parents are still at work when they get home from school.

Maybe a parent has less than adequate English skills to help with a child's schoolwork. Or perhaps the parent just doesn't care about helping with homework and is content to rely on schools and teachers to carry that burden.

For these reasons and many more, some Utah children are struggling to learn basic educational skills such as reading.

According to a report released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 69 percent of Utah fourth-graders are not reading at the appropriate level.

"What research shows is that up to third grade, children are learning to read," Abel Ortiz, spokesman for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said during a news conference Tuesday at Parkside Elementary School. "From fourth grade on, they are reading to learn. Reading affects long-term life potential and assets."

The report, which uses data collected from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, ranked Utah at 32nd in the nation — below the national average of 70 percent.

"We fare pretty much close to where the nation is," said Terry Haven, director of the foundation's Kids Count program. "We have a long way to go."

Former West Valley City Councilwoman Margaret Peterson said education in Utah continues to struggle with funding, as well as student-to-teacher ratios, which adds to the burden of students who already are disadvantaged at home.

That's where after-school programs and other tutoring methods come into play.

Peterson, who helped run an after-school program in West Valley City called Project Swing, said students have individual needs that sometimes can't be met during regular school hours.

"We found that if we targeted students' inadequacies and had tutoring for specific needs for individual students, test scores improved anywhere from 50 percent to 188 percent," Peterson said, referring to how the project vastly improved Criterion Reference Test scores at a particular elementary school.

"Students need one-on-one interaction with the teacher," she said.

Parkside Elementary in the Murray School District has been running an after-school program for six years. Wendy Files with the AmeriCorps program helps as a reading tutor at the school during the daytime hours and also is in her first year as the head of the after-school program.

"I have a really strong belief in after-school programs," Files said. "It does wonders for kids with working parents."

Files, who raised her children as a single mother, has seen the great success that has come with more one-on-one interaction with young students.

"It's hard for many to complete their assignments if they are not getting support at home," she said. "But if they have some help here, they can see that success, and then they usually take that upon themselves to do it."

e-mail: danng@desnews.com