Milestone 4

Confidence to Learn and Explore

Ages 5–8

When children have the confidence to learn and explore by third grade, it shows they feel connected and supported in school and are building the reading and math foundations that make continued learning possible.

Why it’s important

When early elementary school is welcoming, stable, and rich with opportunities to question and explore, children are more likely to:

Attend school regularly.
Begin to see themselves as learners.
Persevere through challenges.
Build self-regulation and sustained engagement.
Experience long-term success in school.

By third grade, the gap between children who experienced strong early conditions and those who did not is already measurable and growing. Third grade marks the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. Children without sufficient foundational skills are unlikely to close gaps without significant and costly interventions.

How Oregon measures up

There is no single national benchmark that captures confidence to learn and explore through age eight. For this milestone, Oregon’s progress is best understood through a set of complementary indicators: early attendance, school belonging and climate, exclusionary discipline, and grade 3 results in reading and math. Even on the state level, the Early Learning Transition Check-In, created to replace the Oregon Kindergarten Assessment, is still a pilot program. Interim and formative assessment supports in kindergarten through second grade remain inconsistent across districts. But Oregon has policies and investments to strengthen early learning and improve student outcomes, including:

Early Literacy Success Initiative

A $90 million commitment to science-aligned reading instruction.

2024–25 Early Literacy Success School District Grants Legislative Report

Oregon Statewide Assessment System

Providing annual data on academic performance in grades 3 through 8.

2024–25 SEED State Report

Student Educational Equity Development

The SEED survey of student belonging and engagement begins in third grade – though with only 47% of eligible students participating in 2024–25, the results reflect less than half of Oregon’s students.

2024–25 SEED State Report
ODE reports 180,076 respondents, representing 47% of eligible grade 3–11 students.

Indicator 1

Connection to and support in school

Children are most likely to thrive when they have high rates of school attendance, feel that they belong in school, and experience learning environments as stable and supportive.

Data Gap: Early-grade discipline counts don’t reflect the experiences of individual students

Available data gives the overall numbers of disciplinary incidents, but it does not indicate how many individual students are suspended in K–3. The increases across grades do not tell us whether more students overall are being disciplined.

Key Takeaway

Most young children in Oregon experience school as a welcoming place with caring adults. But too many children are not consistently attending school, and too often school systems still respond to young children’s behavior punitively rather than with support. The data gaps reflect a larger challenge: Oregon is still not measuring many of the root causes of chronic absenteeism, making it difficult to identify and deliver the supports that families need to ensure their kids are connected to and consistently attending supportive learning environments.

Oregon recommendations

Use K–3 attendance, belonging, and discipline data as an integrated early warning system.

Oregon can leverage SB 141 and district improvement processes to identify where students are disengaging in the early grades, using K–2 attendance data even when belonging data is not available.

Strengthen early-grade behavioral supports to reduce exclusion from instruction.

Expand consistent implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, coaching, and Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions so that students have the support they need to remain engaged in learning environments.

Ensure early-grade data is used consistently to identify and address disparities.

Regularly review attendance and discipline patterns across race, income, disability, and language status, and align resources and supports where gaps are largest.

Indicator 2

Foundational skills by the end of third grade

Children who complete the early grades with strong literacy, numeracy, and language foundations are ready to participate in learning in the next grades.

Data Gap: No statewide kindergarten entry data

Oregon retired the Oregon Kindergarten Assessment and has been piloting its replacement, the Early Learning Transition Check-In, since 2022. As of 2025–26, the new tool remains in the pilot stage with no confirmed date for statewide implementation, leaving Oregon with no statewide measure of what children know and can do when they enter kindergarten.

Data Gap: No comprehensive, statewide dyslexia follow-up measure

Oregon requires universal dyslexia risk screening in kindergarten (or in first grade, if that is a child’s first year in an Oregon public school). But no statewide measure tracks screening completion, family notification, intervention access, or follow-up outcomes across districts.

Key Takeaway

In the absence of the Oregon Kindergarten Assessment or a comprehensive and fully implemented Early Learning Transition Check-In, the data Oregon can act on remains limited. But the data we do have is clear: too many children are not yet where they need to be in language arts and math, with the widest gaps for English learners, children experiencing poverty, and other groups the system has historically underserved.

Oregon recommendations

Strengthen language-rich instruction across the early grades.

Prioritize vocabulary, background knowledge, and oral language development alongside foundational reading skills.

Integrate multilingual learner supports into early literacy and MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) frameworks.

Align language development with core instruction and early intervention systems.

Elevate early math as a core component of foundational learning.

Invest in curriculum, instructional support, and intervention systems comparable to early literacy.

Establish statewide follow-up supports for dyslexia screening.

Track completion, family notification, and access to intervention.

Expand access to formative assessment in kindergarten through second grade.

Increase consistent use of tools such as OSAS Interim Assessment Blocks to support earlier identification and response.

Intervene earlier to keep students on track

Confidence to learn and explore is built day by day, through the steady accumulation of experiences that tell children they belong and that school is worth showing up for. Oregon has made recent investments to support this goal. The next step is integrating these efforts through strong, consistent implementation. Attendance, belonging, discipline, literacy, math, and language development are not separate tracks. Taken collectively, these indicators show whether the system is working for children. Oregon must use the data to intervene earlier and keep students on track.

Acting on the data

Despite recent efforts to strengthen early learning, Oregon is not yet delivering consistent results for all children. Oregon schools are still struggling to return attendance and reading and math proficiency rates to pre-pandemic levels. Substantial disparities persist for students experiencing poverty and for English learners.

Key Takeaway

Oregon is making some progress, with most young children reporting strong relationships with adults at school, and the youngest multilingual learners achieving some of the fastest gains. But significant disparities in foundational skills remain, underscoring the need to connect early learning, K-12, and family supports into a more coherent system.