Tennessee first lady Crissy Haslam shared at the Camp House Monday night what the state is doing to increase young children’s reading proficiency and encourage parent engagement.
Haslam’s message came with a sense of urgency. Right now, she said, only one third, or 34 percent, of the state’s third graders are reading proficiently.
“Third grade reading proficiency is a key marker,” she said, adding that children who do not read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.
Two thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare, as 70 percent of inmates cannot read above a fourth grade level, she said.
Haslam said Tennessee is the only state to have the Imagination Library, a program that mails free books to children from birth until school age in all of its 95 counties.