On her 101st day in third grade, 8-year-old Valeria Morales settled beside her teacher for a reading assessment.
Her brown hair in a ponytail, Valeria softly read aloud from a list of words that children two years younger would be expected to know.
Although she had no trouble recognizing many of the first-grade level words, including "run," "mapâ and âsing,â she stumbled over others.
âOh, no,â she sighed.
"It's OK," instructional coach Christine Linden assured her, keeping track of words she missed. "This just helps me to know what I need to teach you."
It was early February 2020 at Lafayette Elementary School, where educators knew time was running out to get students ready for a battery of high-stakes tests Pennsylvania requires public schools to administer in reading, math and science.