{"id":209170,"date":"2026-06-03T04:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T04:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/209170\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T04:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T04:57:12","slug":"more-birmingham-city-schools-elementary-students-reading-on-grade-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/209170\/","title":{"rendered":"More Birmingham City Schools elementary students reading on grade level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbrc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">WBRC<\/a>) &#8211; More Birmingham City Schools students are reading at grade level, according to new estimated early literacy numbers shared by the district.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Second grade is up two percentage points while third grade is remaining steady at nearly 80%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cMajority of our second-graders: 64% are reading on grade level based on this test last year and now we have 66%. Then our third-graders remain steady at 78%,\u201d said Dr. Mark Sullivan, Birmingham City Schools superintendent.<\/p>\n<p>District finalizing numbers, presents improvement plan<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Birmingham City Schools says those estimated numbers will be finalized in July. At the last school board meeting, a plan was presented to get more students reading on grade level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The approach varies by student need. Some students may need to target phonics and their sight words. Some students may need to prioritize vocabulary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Sullivan says one of the biggest differences in student reading is when parents get involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe say that all you have to do is read for 15 minutes with your child and that presumes that students have books at home and for many of our students, the only books that they have are the books provided by the school,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n<p>Summer reading support and resources<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Birmingham City Schools sends students home with more books to encourage summer reading.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cEvery summer, we partner with Scholastic and we provide backpacks (with books) to students so they can have at-home libraries,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">District leaders say they are committed to providing the support each student needs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are really concentrating on providing those additional supports which include at-home libraries, tutoring, summer camps, and we\u2019ve already identified and are working with those students this week. As soon as we got the data back, we started working with those students in preparation for summer camp,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhamcityschools.org\/o\/bcs\/page\/intersession-programs\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bhamcityschools.org\/o\/bcs\/page\/intersession-programs\">Sensational Summer Learning Program<\/a> begins June 15. Sullivan says the camp is free and transportation and meals are provided for students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Get news alerts in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wbrc-fox6-news\/id449660326\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple App Store<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.raycom.wbrc&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play Store<\/a> or subscribe to our email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/newsletter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WBRC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) &#8211; More Birmingham City Schools students are reading at grade level, according to new estimated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[48910,91868,91869,227,24023,38260,21933,24024,736,128,130,129,91870,91871,24022],"class_list":["post-209170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-birmingham","tag-birmingham-city-schools","tag-early-literacy-rates","tag-education","tag-fox6","tag-improvements","tag-literacy","tag-myfoxal","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-grade-level","tag-summer-reading-programs","tag-wbrc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}