At first glance the numbers look dire. Almost three-quarters – 74 percent – of Mexico’s first graders tested in 2020 are reading below grade level. Checking the scores of students enrolled in first through fifth grades, none meet the schools’ end of year expectations.

But numbers, as John Kitchens knows, can tell different stories.

Kitchens serves as executive director of curriculum instruction and assessment for the Mexico School District. The data he sorted is from i-Ready Reading Assessment and i-Ready Math Assessment tests taken by students in September – part of an innovative program to help teachers provide more targeted, individualized instruction.

“Generally we are above the state average for being on grade level,” he said. “I’m excited to see how the results come out in January.”

Students will be tested again in January and at the end of the year. These tests generate measurements against a national percentile, but are scaled much deeper. And the detail that fascinates statisticians is translated by Kitchens and i-Ready – a service of the educational training and support firm Curriculum Associates – for classroom use.

“It changes what we focus on,” explained Amber Crane, principal at Eugene Field Elementary School. “We can go to an individual student and see where their strengths are and where their weaknesses are.”

In many ways it is like the movie Moneyball, where number-crunchers broke down player performance in baseball to find improvements and change the way people think about the game. In this case reading is divided into five “domains” – vocabulary, comprehension and the like. Teachers can take that information and see that one student is good in three domains, but needs attention in the other two, while another is strong in four, but could use help in one.

It also gives them the ability to monitor a student’s progress and determine more precisely what they need. Each student learns differently. The i-Ready program is designed to locate those differences.

Kitchens points out that 30 percent of students pick up reading any way it is taught. In education parlance, these are tier one students. The other tiers require more specialized instruction.

The i-Ready exam at the beginning of the school year provided a benchmark. The scores were measured against end of year expectation, which is one of the reasons they appear so low.

“We look at growth measures,” Crane said, adding that teachers appreciate the additional tools, such as the ability to monitor student progress. “You don’t want it to be a guessing game.”

One of the ways teachers apply the information is through group learning. Students with similar needs can be placed together, allowing teachers to work with them more effectively.

“We’re looking at end of the year expectations,” Crane explained.

Kitchens anticipated a drop off in initial test scores compared to previous years with the pandemic disrupting the 2019-2020 school year. But there was little backsliding.

It’s something other districts across the nation have noticed, as well. Reading skills held steady or even improved in the first round of testing.

“Parents are forced to be more involved,” Kitchens said.

The i-Ready exam gives Kitchens comparative data with 80,000 students across the country. He would like to have several years worth of information from the state to help with long term assessment.

“We try to calibrate for where we will be, but our assessments at the state level haven’t been consistent.”