{"id":372121,"date":"2026-06-23T22:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372121\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T22:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:57:09","slug":"fresno-unified-announces-major-win-in-literacy-fight-surpasses-interim-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372121\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno Unified Announces Major Win in Literacy Fight, Surpasses Interim Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fresno Unified School District has achieved huge gains in early literacy, surpassing the district\u2019s interim goal for kindergarten students.<\/p>\n<p>In early 2025, the district narrowed efforts and raised expectations, committing to four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnounified.org\/departments\/ama\/goals-and-guardrails\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">goals and guardrails<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rlic_tareqanwar_link\">Related Story: <a href=\"https:\/\/gvwire.com\/2025\/01\/30\/has-fresno-unified-finally-planted-the-flag-for-an-academic-revolution\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Has Fresno Unified Finally Planted the Flag for an Academic Revolution?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/gvwire.com\/contact\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"a2t-link\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"GVWire-Ad-Get-our-mobile-app-1280\u00d790-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GVWire-Ad-Get-our-mobile-app-1280x90-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"   width=\"1280\" height=\"90\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One interim goal aimed to raise the percentage of students showing mastery in foundational literacy skills from 50.5% to 62.5% by June 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Kindergarten classrooms blew past that goal with 70% of pupils achieving mastery \u2014 equaling 3,074 out of 4,364 students \u2014 on the Kindergarten Foundational Skills Assessment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese results reflect the incredible work happening every day in our classrooms. Reaching and exceeding our Early Literacy goal means thousands more students are on track for long-term success,\u201d said Superintendent Misty Her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen students build strong literacy skills in kindergarten, they are better prepared to thrive academically and graduate ready to pursue the opportunities they choose for their future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Goal: Proficient Readers by Third Grade<\/p>\n<p>Now, first-grade teachers will be able to accelerate learning without having to repeat and reteach past skills.<\/p>\n<p>These test results also indicate that more students are on track to becoming proficient readers by third grade<\/p>\n<p>Research shows that students who are not on track to becoming readers by the end of third grade are less likely to graduate from high school prepared for college and career.<\/p>\n<p>Fresno Unified Superintendent Her Will Talk Literacy on \u2018Unfiltered\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Superintendent Her will appear tonight as a guest on the Unfiltered Podcast, hosted by GV Wire publisher Darius Assemi.<\/p>\n<p>Her is set to discuss how the district is working to increase literacy. Alongside her, a first-grade lead teacher from Mayfair Elementary, Ana Bustos, will share classroom insights.<\/p>\n<p>Her spent this past school year every Monday morning co-teaching literacy alongside Bustos. This partnership led to impressive results with 83% of pupils reading at grade level.<\/p>\n<p>Unfiltered is streamed live every Tuesday at 6 p.m. on <a href=\"https:\/\/gvwire.com\/unfiltered\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GV Wire<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GVWire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno Unified School District has achieved huge gains in early literacy, surpassing the district\u2019s interim goal for kindergarten&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-372121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}