What exactly is the third-grade commitment? It is the confidence that students will be successful before reaching third grade. Children are expected to be capable of basic writing, editing, and revising by the third grade. They should also have mastered basic reading skills and begun to focus on comprehension. The 3rd Grade Commitment is a collaborative effort among schools, parents, and our community to ensure that we all work together to help SCS youngsters achieve reading ready before third grade. 

In third grade, pupils stop "learning to read" and instead start "reading to learn." If students are unable to read at grade level by the third grade, half of the subjects they will be taught for the remainder of their academic lives will be beyond their comprehension. The average third-grade student should read 83 correct words per minute in the fall, 97 in the winter, and 112 in the spring. Continue to read books beyond their grade level aloud to them to help them improve their reading abilities. While children at this age may not be ready to read chapter books independently, you may help them learn language and grammar while also boosting their comprehension by reading increasingly complicated passages aloud to them.

MSCS provides the Summer Learning Academy, a four-week program that assists children who do not score "met expectations" or "exceeded expectations" on the ELA component of the state's standardized test (TCAP). The Tennessee Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act requires all school districts in Tennessee to provide learning loss remediation summer programs for children in grades K-8. Additionally, kids who strive for success are encouraged or expected to enroll in tutoring during their fourth grade year.