Organizations Work Together on Reading into Success

More than 20 eastern Iowa organizations are working together to help students become more proficient in reading.

On Tuesday night, the groups held a meeting on "Reading into Success."

The program looks at which reading techniques are working and which ones are not.

Iowa law states that next school year students who are not proficient in reading by the end of third grade won't automatically move on to fourth grade.

"Our biggest goal is to compliment what's already in our community and to help scale that up," said Laura Columbus, education initiatives coordinator. "So we're not really creating a lot of new things in our community, but helping people understand the importance of reading, of third grade reading."

The Iowa Department of Education estimates one-fourth of third graders in Iowa don't meet state proficiency standards for reading.