Education, Good Government

Experts urge Oklahoma to reinstate third-grade reading law

October 22, 2025

Ray Carter

According to national research, about 40 percent of elementary-school students will learn to read almost regardless of the teaching methods used in the classroom.

But that’s not the case in Oklahoma, where National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests showed that only 23 percent of fourth-grade students were proficient or advanced in reading in 2024.

State officials believe those basement-level results are not due to Oklahoma students being somehow inferior to their peers nationwide.

“What we’ve learned from other states is that, in essence, widespread illiteracy is a policy choice,” said state Rep. Rob Hall, R-Tulsa.

In a legislative study, literacy experts urged members of the Oklahoma House Common Education Committee to reinstate a strong third-grade reading law in Oklahoma that requires early intervention for struggling readers in elementary schools, with the poorest performers required to repeat third grade if needed.

Such a law was in place from roughly 2011 to 2014 and generated enormous gains in literacy outcomes in Oklahoma. By 2015, Oklahoma’s NAEP score on fourth-grade reading surged to 222, which was above the national average.

But policymakers gutted the retention mandate in 2014, and other actions were taken to reduce literacy efforts in Oklahoma schools.

Mary Dahlgren, a literacy consultant and former classroom teacher, noted that prior to 2015, a period when Janet Barresi served as state superintendent, Oklahoma employed 58 reading coaches who worked with teachers and schools across the state to implement effective reading instruction, and outcomes improved dramatically.

But those positions were subsequently defunded during the administration of former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, who eventually switched parties to become a Democrat.

By 2024, the average reading NAEP score of fourth-grade students in Oklahoma fell to 207, which was not only below the national average but also indicated Oklahoma students are now roughly 1.5 years behind their 2014 peers.

“Oklahoma can do it,” Dahlgren said. “We made some great gains in just a short period of time. If we’d stuck with that model, we would be able to continue to do that.”

Officials urged Oklahoma to return to that model, noting the enormous success Mississippi has had since it adopted a similar law.

Casey Sullivan Taylor, senior policy director with ExcelinEd, noted that Mississippi officials passed that state’s reading law in 2013 and have strengthened it since. The state’s third-grade retention mandate was not only preserved but made tougher in 2019 when officials increased the score required to pass the state test and avoid repeating the third grade.

Mississippi began with 22 instructional coaches who worked with the state’s most challenged schools. That figure has increased as high as 86 in subsequent years and currently exceeds 60.

Mississippi’s rank on NAEP fourth-grade reading tests was as low as 49th nationally but, thanks to reading reforms, increased to ninth-best in the nation on the 2024 test.

Student outcomes have risen for all groups, including low-income students.

“We have seen drastic changes in poverty-stricken schools,” Taylor said. “… I walked through schools with leaks in the roof, stepping over puddles, atrocious conditions for a school building, but students (were) in a classroom hearing from a qualified teacher.”

Mississippi is the only state in the nation where the bottom 10 percent of students scored higher on the NAEP fourth-grade reading test in 2024 than their 2013-2014 school-year counterparts.

In Mississippi, students are required to repeat the third grade only as a last resort, and significant interventions occur in lower grades to help struggling students avoid retention. Also, students are given three chances to pass the state reading test.

“It is not retention for retention’s sake,” Taylor said. “It is based on the need of a student to be able to have additional support before they move on to grade levels where teachers will be less equipped to empower them to become a skilled reader.”

Research has since shown that by the sixth grade, those students who were retained under Mississippi’s third-grade law outperformed their peers who barely passed the test and were promoted to fourth grade.

“They needed more support,” Taylor said. “If we had pushed them on, they wouldn’t have been ready.”

In the 2014-2015 school year, the first for which the retention law took effect, 8.1 percent of third-grade students in Mississippi had to repeat a grade. The share subject to retention has generally been lower in most years since.

That defies the predictions of critics, who expected a near-apocalyptic impact from the retention law.

“In the beginning, we were getting all kinds of feedback: ‘Fifty percent of kids are going to be retained in third grade!’ It was like the drastic, dire stories of ‘how could we do this; how could we damage our state?’ We were going to have, like, a small fourth-grade class and (with) all these kids third grade was going to be overflowing and overwhelmed,” Taylor said. “That’s not what happened.”

In 2003, Oklahoma students outperformed their Mississippi peers by nearly a grade level on NAEP’s fourth-grade reading test. By 2024, the opposite occurred with Mississippi students roughly a grade level ahead of the average Oklahoma student.

Dahlgren noted that 88 percent of students who are struggling readers in first grade are still struggling readers in the fourth grade if they do not receive significant interventions.

Dahlgren urged lawmakers to base public-school instruction in the science of reading, which incorporates many practices and strategies proven to work, including phonetic instruction.

“We know how to prevent reading failure,” Dahlgren said. “We know what to do. We need to actually do the work—and it’s hard work.”

Hall said lawmakers cannot be content with the status quo.

“The ability to read well is the most important thing that a child will learn in school, especially during their younger grades,” Hall said. “It’s the foundation upon which all further education is built. So, how are we doing on the literacy front here in Oklahoma? Well, it’s no secret that we are not doing great.”

He noted Oklahoma is “consistently” ranked in the bottom five states for K-12 education in general and literacy in particular. Even so, he said there is “reason for hope.”

“Those rankings are not etched in stone,” Hall said. “Other states, like Mississippi, have blazed a trail by showing that massive literacy gains for our students are possible in a relatively short amount of time.”

And, he noted, Mississippi “accomplished all of this with per-pupil spending roughly comparable to Oklahoma.”

House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, also urged lawmakers to focus on literacy this year.

“This is something that is absolutely critical to our state,” Hilbert said. “I mean, we’re talking about a lot of problems that our state is facing when you talk about shortage of doctors, shortage of nurses, shortage of engineers. You name it, we’re talking about shortage areas, particularly in STEM fields. But when you get to the core of that particular issue, if our kids can’t read, then they’re not going to be doctors. They’re not going to be attorneys. They’re not going to be physicians. They’re not going to be engineers.”

And, Hilbert noted, Oklahoma’s prior experience demonstrates that the combination of early intervention, retention as a last resort, and the use of valid reading-instruction methods in the classroom can generate significant improvement in a relatively short amount of time.

“It’s a policy that we’ve had in Oklahoma in the past,” Hilbert said. “And I think we should not only look at what Mississippi has done, but look at the results in Oklahoma from when we had this policy–and when we didn’t—and  see what we need to do to have really data-driven results for what’s going to be successful for our kids. Because, frankly, the future of our state depends on whether or not our kids can read.”