3–2–1 Exit Ticket

Good readers are strategic readers who can think deeply about what they are reading. Strategic reading requires thinking in three phases: (1) before, (2) during, and (3) after reading. Therefore, in addition to the three literacy elements, the literacy triangle graphic also shares in which phase each element takes place, as well as the big three teacher-planning, student-thinking actions for before, during, and after reading, which we expand on in chapters 4–6 in this book.

Why Did We Write This Book?

We wrote this book because literacy is an urgent life skill. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data in figure I.2, as well as the following literacy statistics, make the urgency even higher.

• Reading scores have flatlined in the United States since 1998, with two out of three students not meeting the standards for reading proficiency set by the NAEP. This NAEP test shows no growth in reading progress since about that time. Only 35 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2019, down from 37 percent in 2017; 34 percent of eighth graders were proficient in reading, down from 36 percent (Nation’s

Report Card, 2020). • In Australia, reading, mathematics, and science achievement has continued to decline so much that the average fifteen-year-old in 2018 was almost a year behind in reading compared to a fifteen-year-old two years prior (Australian Council for Educational

Research, 2019). • Although Canadian reading scores are much higher than many other countries’

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reading scores, those reading scores declined from 534 (in 2000) to 520. Mathematics declined from 532 (in 2003) to 512, and science went from 534 (in 2006) to 518 (Richards, 2020). • In 2019, 78 percent of U.S. fourth graders living in low-incomes homes scored below the proficient level in reading, compared to 48 percent of fourth graders in moderate- and high-income homes (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2019). • The great majority of students who fail to master reading by third grade either drop out of high school or finish with dismal lifetime-earning potentials (Weyer & Casares, 2019). • College- and career-ready standards show negative effects on student scores on the

NAEP in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade mathematics (Loveless, 2020).

Although the race gap in reading achievement is narrowing, it still exists and must be eliminated:

At grade 4, the White-Black gap in reading achievement scores narrowed from 32 points in 1992 to 26 points in 2017; the White-Hispanic gap in 2017 (23 points) was not measurably different from the gap in 1992 . At grade 8, the White-Hispanic gap narrowed from 26 points in 1992 to 19 points in 2017; the White-Black gap in 2017 (25 points) was not measurably different from the gap in 1992 . (de Brey et al ., 2019, p . iv)