Kyle Penney

Timothy Tinker was a book I remember reading over and over as a child. Timothy had an oilcan, which most children today would not even recognize. Timothy went around his home and neighborhood adding a drop or two of oil to everything that squeaked — wagon wheels, gate hinges, and an assortment of other toys.

I think Timothy Tinker inspired my inner repairman, because I still find myself taking things apart that I probably should just throw away and replace. As I reflect fondly on how Timothy Thinker impacted my childhood, what I came to recognize is that all children do not grow up with books to read like I did.

At a recent meeting in Longview, Dr. Wynn Rosser, President and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation shared observations about workforce readiness across the East Texas region. One of the keys to workforce readiness, as it turns out, is making sure that children are reading on grade level by the end of the third grade.

You might be surprised, as I was, about why that is important. A long-term study conducted by the University of Chicago, examined the educational outcomes of 26,000 third graders, and determined the following:

“Learning to read is one of the most important skills in modern society. Not only does reading serve as the major foundational skill for school-based learning, but reading ability is strongly related to opportunities for academic and vocational success. For children, a critical transition takes place during elementary school: until the end of third grade, most students are learning to read. Beginning in fourth grade, however, students begin reading to learn. Students who are not reading at grade level by third grade begin having difficulty comprehending the written material that is a central part of the educational process in the grades that follow. Meeting increased educational demands becomes more difficult for students who struggle to read.”

No matter what you want to do as a career after high school, reading is critical. Reading directions, reading warnings, reading training materials, reading orders, reading procedures or reading more journals and textbooks all require basic reading comprehension from the third grade. Words you can clearly read and pronounce in the third grade become complex sentences and paragraphs and thoughts and concepts that you can understand in later grades and well beyond school.

Our public, private, charter schools, start with new classes of kindergarteners each year and have four years to work with them to build their skills from letter recognition, to putting sounds, letters and words together in sentences by the end of the third grade. Our schools have an important job and need the resources to prepare our youngest learners for success. These children don’t get to pick their parents or their background, but we need to make sure they learn to read so they can read to learn.

My wife is a reading specialist and I asked her what she thought was the greatest contributing factor for a child to be able to read on grade level after the third grade. Her response was quick: parents reading to their children, which starts well before kindergarten. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a charity started by the East Tennessee native singer who wanted to “foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families.” The charity, which has a branch operating in Wood County in East Texas, hosted by the Pilot Club of Quitman, provides registered children with the gift of a book each month from birth until they start kindergarten. With chapters around the world, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has distributed over 221 million books since it started in 1995.

Philanthropy can play an important role in reading readiness. Some people need evidence to know what works and how to invest their time and talents. It was a gift from the Annie E. Casey Foundation that commissioned the 2010 University of Chicago study, “Reading on Grade Level in Third Grade: How Is It Related to High School Performance and College Enrollment?” Many schools have school foundations which raise charitable support to fund teacher grants, providing unique tools and resources that help teachers instill a love for reading and learning in their classrooms. After school and summer programs such as Mentoring Alliance help students stay focused on their academics in a safe and fun environment. Aside from financial contributions there are opportunities to volunteer in schools and mentoring programs where you can be the reader that an early learner wants to emulate. Supporting reading programs to make sure our third graders are ready to learn may be your next best opportunity to Give Well.