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HCPSS reports mixed progress on reading by Grade 3, outlines five next steps
Summary
District officials reported incremental gains in MCAP English Language Arts proficiency since 2022 and said particular student groups showed accelerated growth; they identified priorities including intensifying Tier 1 instruction, refining walk-through feedback, and focusing on multilingual learners and students with IEPs.
The Howard County Public School System presented a Reading by Grade 3 update that combined district assessment data, professional learning activities and next steps aimed at improving early literacy outcomes.
Ebony Lankford Brown, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, told the Board the district's preK-12 English language arts strategic plan centers on five goals: implement high-quality instructional materials, use the five core components of reading, provide professional learning on the science of reading, implement a multi-tiered system of supports and expand community engagement.
The presentation compared MCAP data from school year 2022 to 2024 and reported a 6 percentage-point improvement in overall proficiency on the MCAP English Language Arts assessment. More notably, some historically underperforming groups recorded larger gains: Black/African American, economically disadvantaged and multilingual learner groups posted about 8-point gains and Hispanic/Latino students about a 10-point gain, the district reported.
The district said formative measures were mixed. For reading foundational skills (DIBELS), 65% to 73% of K-3 students were at or above expectations at the beginning of the year. For higher-level comprehension measures such as CommonLit, only about 21% of third graders were at or above year-end expectations on pre-administration, rising to 40% at mid-administration.
Officials outlined five next steps: intensify Tier 1 instruction and targeted supports with a focus on multilingual learners and students with IEPs; refine the walk-through process to provide more actionable feedback; sustain school-level support guided by end-of-year data; strengthen data-driven collaboration among staff; and align district materials and strategies with the new Maryland State Department of Education comprehensive literacy plan.
Board members pressed staff on several operational questions: how intervention group sizes had changed (district representatives said most groups are now three to five students, with no groups larger than six); how the various screeners and measures correlate with each other and with MCAP outcomes; and how parents would be better informed of their children's reading levels and intervention status. Dr. Eva Yu, coordinator of research and program evaluation, said correlations vary by measure and the district plans further analysis of predictive power across the assessments.
The district said an updated preK-12 ELA strategic plan will be revised over the summer to reflect MSDE literacy policy changes and that administrators' August work will include rollout and deeper alignment.
