The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is launching a new campaign called Know Your Child’s Reading Score in an effort for parents/guardians of kindergarten through third-grade students to be well informed of their child’s reading ability and support offered by school districts and schools.

The Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) requires school districts to assess the reading skills of students in kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade (K-3) at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.

Schools administer screeners to determine each student’s reading ability and students receive a score on each screener.

If the score indicates a student may be at risk of having a substantial deficiency in reading, the LBPA requires school districts to provide written notification to parents/guardians until the deficiency is remediated. The written notification is provided in what MDE refers to as “literacy screener letters.”

“All parents should be notified of their K-3 students’ scores, but literacy screener letters are only sent when a student’s score shows a child is not reading on grade level,” said Kristen Wynn, MDE’s state literacy director. “With this campaign, we want parents and guardians to know they should receive this information from teachers. Once they have this information, teachers and parents work together to ensure students receive the necessary supports to improve their reading skills.”

If a student is not reading on grade level, the LBPA requires an individual reading plan to be created and teacher/parent meetings to occur to help students succeed in reading.

Visit the new Know Your Child’s Reading Score website at strongreadersms.com/reading-score/ to get more information on screener letters and parental resources.

Find all MDE news releases at mdek12.org/news.