OPINION: Literacy isn't just a skill, it's the key to belonging

Third-grade reading proficiency isn't just a literacy stat — it's a leading indicator of a child's path through school and beyond. A new op-ed in the Dayton Daily News, drawing on Learn to Earn Dayton's data dashboard, explores why only 59% of Montgomery County third graders are proficient readers, and what it will take to change that.

From University of Dayton professor Mary-Kate Sobelski in the Dayton Daily News:

Every fall, teachers and librarians across the Miami Valley prepare to welcome a new group of students. Each child arrives with a history, a culture and a story worth telling. But too many of them arrive without the one thing they need most to feel they belong: the ability to read well.

We usually talk about literacy as a life skill, something a child needs to follow instruction and eventually fill out a job application or read a lease. But literacy is also a key to opening doors of opportunity and experience within and beyond the classroom.

A child who cannot read cannot fully participate in the curriculum. They cannot follow the science lesson, join the discussion about the novel or work through the word problem in math. They sit in the room, but they are not truly in it. Reading is not one subject among many. It is the thread that runs through all of them.

Only 59% of third graders in Montgomery County are proficient at reading, according to Learn to Earn’s dashboard. That stat matters because third grade is the moment to watch. It’s when work shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. A student who reaches that line still struggling doesn’t just fall behind in reading. They fall behind in everything, all at once. Researchers have long found that third-grade reading is one of the strongest predictors we have of whether a child will graduate from high school and go on to college.

The encouraging news is that Dayton is not standing still. Learn to Earn Dayton helped secure $168 million in the state budget for evidence-based reading instruction, and more than 300 area educators have been trained in the Science of Reading. At the University of Dayton, we prepare teachers to teach according to the International Dyslexia Association’s Knowledge & Practice Standards. We know how to teach children to decode words. The question is how we motivate them to want to read at all and how we make sure they see themselves when they do.

That is where storytelling matters most. When children see their own lives reflected in the books they read, they learn that their stories count. When they read about lives unlike their own, they build the empathy it takes to live in a diverse community. The right book can help a classroom navigate hardship together and hold onto hope through it. A classroom full of the right books becomes a place where every student feels seen, heard and valued.

The low proficiency numbers are a warning. But they are also an invitation. We cannot close a gap this wide with worksheets alone. We close it by making reading something children want to do, by sharing with them stories that make them feel they belong on the page, in the room and in the wider world.

Mary-Kate Sableski is the Leary Chair for Innovation in Education, Health and Wellness at the University of Dayton.