Reducing Kindergarten Retention Rates: A District's Reading Turnaround

For years, one number followed me everywhere I went: how many of our kindergartners and first graders were being retained because they weren't reading on level. I heard it in meetings, I saw it in our data, and I felt it every time a principal had to have that conversation with a family. When I became Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction at United Independent School District in Laredo, Texas, increasing the number of on-grade-level readers and reducing our kindergarten retention rates wasn't just a goal on my list. It was the goal.

 

Finding One System Instead of 30 Different Ones

 

My background is in business. I have a bachelor's degree in accounting, and I came up through the data side of the house, not the reading side. But working through our bilingual program and watching how we transitioned students from their home language to English, I decided to become reading certified myself. That work is what first pulled me toward foundational literacy.

At the time, we had 30 elementary schools and a real hodgepodge of reading approaches—maybe two or three campuses working together on their own version of something, but nothing standardized for phonics instruction across the district. Then, at a conference in Chicago, I learned about Magnetic Foundations. I heard Anita Archer speak, saw how the program covered every part of the reading journey, and saw how tightly it was tied to i-Ready Inform for monitoring. I was sold.

 

A team of us made the case to bring Magnetic Foundations into every kindergarten, first, and second grade classroom districtwide. That was roughly 150 teachers per grade level.

Taking a Full Year before Asking Teachers to Change Anything

 

Change is hard, especially in education, where it feels like every legislative session brings something new. My elementary education director at the time told me: “Let's take it slow.” So instead of flipping everything the following year, we took a whole year just to train, to embed the program into our district scope and sequence, and to give teachers real time to make it their own before they ever had to use it with our students.

 

I'm completing my 30th year in education, and every single time we've made a change like this, there has been major pushback. Not this time. Nobody went to the board. Nobody complained. Our teachers really embraced it.

 

We saw the same thing when we piloted Mosaico: Fundamentos por i-Ready, the Spanish-language companion program. Instead of the district simply announcing a new initiative, we filmed our own teachers using the materials and showcased them to their peers. It landed completely differently coming from a colleague than it would have coming from anyone else.

  

The Numbers I Had Been Waiting Years to See

 

Three years ago, we went full districtwide with Magnetic Foundations in every kindergarten, first, and second grade classroom. Last year, once our teachers had two full years with the program under their belts, our kindergarten students came out 88% at or above grade level, in both English and Spanish, measured through i-Ready Inform’s beginning, middle, and end-of-year assessments. That had never happened before in our district.

 

That, to me, is the greatest return on investment I could ask for.

 

Here's what that number means in practice. We serve roughly 2,700 kindergartners a year, and last year I don't believe we had more than 15 retentions district-wide, a fraction of a percent. Compare that to a single campus I worked with several years ago, where 18 of about 80 kindergartners were retained in one year alone. We've also put a district committee in place: no campus can retain a Kinder student without the committee first reviewing their phonics data, their numbers, and the interventions already tried.

 

I tell principals this often: retention is not an intervention. Retention means our interventions failed. Reducing our kindergarten retention rate wasn't about changing a policy. It was about finally giving every classroom the same strong, structured foundation in literacy.

 

The Second-Grade Class I'll Never Forget

 

The clearest proof came at a campus going through a difficult transition. One second-grade class, still feeling the effects of the pandemic and some administrative turnover, came in with roughly 75% of students reading well below grade level, essentially non-readers entering second grade. We assessed every student, ordered extra Magnetic Foundations kits, and regrouped that grade level by actual reading level instead of by age or grade, routing students to our strongest reading teacher based on where they truly were. By January, 70% of that class was reading across the board. Some students jumped a full grade level, or more, in about six months.

 

It wasn't one heroic effort from one teacher. It was the structure holding. When you have a complete literacy system, use it with fidelity, and measure the impact along the way, students succeed, even the ones everyone had quietly written off.

 

What I'd Tell Any Teacher Who Feels Like They're Losing Ground

 

I won't pretend teaching is easy. It isn't, especially when you're preparing for every different level in your room, and not every student learns the same way or at the same pace. But I've watched a district that is 98.9% Hispanic, serves roughly 40% emergent bilingual students districtwide, and sits on the border with Mexico, go from some of our hardest retention conversations to our strongest kindergarten reading data in district history.

 

My own grandson is in kindergarten in our district right now, using these same materials. He comes home excited, showing me what he's learned, asking if I'm going to log into i-Ready too. Watching that, as both a grandmother and the administrator who recommended this investment for a district of over 39,000 students, is something I don't take lightly.

 

So, if you're a teacher standing in front of a classroom of kids who aren't reading yet, and it feels like nothing is working: don't give up on them. It takes time, patience, and the right structure behind you, but these kids can catch up and catch up fast. They need these skills for life, and they're worth every bit of the work it takes to get there.

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More Resources for You:

The People Behind Authentic Spanish Literacy Program Design  

United Independent School District: Students Meet Potential in Reading 

A Fresh Approach to Instruction Marks a Turning Point in K–2 Reading Proficiency