Most Kindergartners Now Can Read a Book

Good literacy news from the Washington Post:

The share of kindergarten students in the county who can read simple books has risen from 39 to 93 percent in six years, according to school system data culled from reading assessments given each spring. Achievement is so high, and across so many demographic groups, that school officials plan to test future kindergartners on more challenging text.

The article credits the change from half-day kindergarten to full-day kindergarten. One of the main reasons we started homeschooling is that we weren’t really ready to send our son away for a full day, and there wasn’t an option to send him for a half-day — the teachers assured us that he would miss out on far too much. We thought that we would miss our son far too much.