From 2014-15 through 2020-21, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) assessed literacy proficiency for K-5 students using aimsweb and aimswebPlus, universal early literacy screening, benchmarking, and progress-monitoring tools from Pearson.

This report uses both a cohort analysis and a cross-sectional analysis of aimsweb results to examine the literacy performance from 2014-15 to 2018-19 of three kindergarten cohorts.

Key findings include:

• Cohort analyses revealed improving performance patterns over time: across all three cohorts, in general, there seems to be a pattern of improving performance from 1st to 3rd grade as students spend more years in school.
• Cross-sectional analyses revealed different patterns between 1st and 3rd graders across cohorts: the performance of 1st and 2nd graders improved slightly or saw no change between cohorts, but 3rd grade fluctuated more, with a higher percentages of 3rd grade students scoring in the lowest performance group in 2018-19 than in earlier cohorts.
• For all Kindergarten cohorts, students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) saw a decline in performance, with increases in the percentage of students who scored in the lowest performance group from 1st grade to 3rd grade.
• For 1st and 2nd graders across the three Kindergarten cohorts, female students, male students, economically disadvantaged students, and English Learners demonstrated improved performance, with decreases in the percentage of students who scored in the lowest performance group across the years of interest. The pattern differed for 3rd graders, as well as students in different racial/ethnic groups and students with IEPs.