Education

Researchers find reading retention threat boosts learning

August 4, 2026

Ray Carter

During the 2026 legislative session, state policymakers enacted legislation essentially requiring Oklahoma students to repeat the third grade unless they read at least at a second-grade level.

A new report shows that a similar law in Ohio produced long-term benefits for numerous students that lasted into their middle-school years.

In a working paper released by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, “The Effect of Retention Threat on Student Learning Gains: Evidence from Ohio,” researchers reviewed Ohio data from 2014 through 2017 and found that the state’s third-grade reading law, which is similar to Oklahoma’s new law, generated positive and lasting effects “across cohorts, student groups, and schools.”

Researchers found the law benefited many children, not just those who were ultimately required to repeat the third grade.

In Ohio, the report found that roughly one-third of students are identified as at-risk of retention based on fall assessments, while 15 percent score below the threshold on the spring assessment, yet only 3 percent “are ultimately retained, a rate that has remained stable over time.”

Even so, researchers found the law incentivized significant improvement among the large share of students who were identified as potential candidates for retention, writing they found “that students exposed to the threat of retention in Grade 3 experience larger learning gains than students who are not under retention threat.”

Those positive benefits persisted through grade seven.

And the benefits were not limited to students’ reading performance on English Language Arts (ELA) tests.

“We find that retention threat increases achievement in both ELA and math during Grade 3, with ELA effects persisting through middle school, particularly among students identified as ‘Not On-Track,’” the paper stated. “Students facing retention threat are also less likely to be absent and more likely to be assigned to literacy interventions, though we do not detect effects on disciplinary incidents or later-grade retention. The persistence of ELA gains, together with positive effects in math, a subject not tied to retention decisions, suggests that these responses reflect meaningful learning rather than short-term accountability responses alone.”

Researchers indicated that the data undermines complaints that “high-stakes testing” harms children.

The researchers wrote that the “persistence of ELA gains, together with positive effects in math, a subject not tied to retention decisions, suggests that responses to retention threat reflect meaningful learning rather than short-term behavioral responses alone. This result is particularly notable given concerns that high-stakes environments may induce anxiety, disengagement, or strategic effort without improving underlying learning …”

Based on available data, the paper’s authors found that Ohio’s reading law produced meaningful learning benefits because it caused a wide range of individuals, not just children, to adjust their behavior and focus on educational improvement.

“Our results show that retention threat can improve student outcomes by changing student, family, or school behavior prior to retention decisions,” the authors wrote.

Discussing the Ohio report’s findings, Vladimir Kogan, a senior research fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, wrote that the third-grade retention law made it difficult for parents to remain unaware of their child’s actual attainment level or for school officials to sweep results under the rug.

“Ohio’s original Third Grade Reading Guarantee required school districts to notify parents that their child faced the possibility of getting retained,” Kogan wrote. “These notifications almost certainly came as a shock to many parents. Recent surveys show that 90 percent of parents believe their children are performing at or above grade level, far higher than the proficiency rates recorded on state assessments. Learning that their child was struggling appears to have caused parents to increase their own effort, as demonstrated by improved school attendance levels in the new study.”

He said the retention law creates an environment where many children benefit from greater academic focus, received from parents at home and educators at school, to ensure those children do not repeat the third grade.

“Repeating a grade and receiving additional interventions represent two possible mechanisms through which retention laws could boost student achievement. The new study points to yet a third possibility: The threat of retention is enough to produce significant gains,” Kogan wrote. “Since many more students face such a threat than ultimately end up getting retained, this means that many more students benefit from retention mandates than previously thought.”

Oklahoma first passed a third-grade reading law that included mandatory retention for the lowest performers in 2011. It generated dramatic results in short order. By 2015, Oklahoma students performed near the national average in reading for the first time in decades.

But the law was largely gutted after only a handful of years, and outcomes plummeted. Today, Oklahoma students trail peer states by more than a full grade level.

Based on Spring 2025 state testing, just 27 percent of Oklahoma third graders are reading at or above grade level, and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests show that only 23 percent of Oklahoma fourth-grade students scored at or above proficient in 2024, meaning students were meeting grade-level expectations. Only two states did worse on NAEP’s fourth-grade reading test.

Senate Bill 1778, by state Sen. Adam Pugh and House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, effectively reinstated and strengthened the prior reading law and is similar to the Ohio program reviewed in the Annenberg Institute working paper.

In effect, the new law requires that Oklahoma students read at least at a second-grade level before beginning the fourth grade. SB 1778 also mandates increased focus on struggling readers in the first and second grades.

This year’s state budget included millions in new funding for reading instruction and interventions in schools, as well as funds for teacher training academies and reading-at-home initiatives.