By Brenda Sexton, The Courier-Herald

Enumclaw School District Curriculum Director Chris Beals said the staff's hard work is starting to show up in third- and sixth-grade test score results.

Beals and the district released results from this year's annual Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) Thursday.

The good news, Beals said, is students are up in all areas.

"It's great to have that happen," he said.

On the ITBS, students demonstrate their grasp of foundation skills (reading, mathematics and language arts) by responding to a series of multiple-choice questions. Unlike the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), the scores are reported as percentile points, meaning students perform as well as, or better than, a certain percentage of other students in the nation.

According to Beals, third-grade reading scores are at a three-year high with Enumclaw students scoring at the 63rd percentile (better than 63 percent of third grade students across the nation) for total reading.

Sixth-grade reading scores are as high or higher than any year in the past five years with Enumclaw students scoring better than 60 percent of the sixth-grade students across the nation.

Sixth-grade language scores are also at a five-year high at both Enumclaw Middle School and Thunder Mountain Middle School.

Both middle schools showed gains in nearly all sub-categories of the test with consistent levels of performance in the remaining sub-categorial areas. Gains were particularly noticeable, Beals noted, in math computation at both schools.

Third-grade students showed significant improvements in math scores with an increase in math computation, math problem solving and data interpretation with Enumclaw students outperforming nearly 70 percent of the students across the nation.

Beals said one of the most impressive statistics isn't as obvious.

This year's third-grade results show fewer students in the bottom 25 percent in total reading than in the past three yeas, while nearly one third of Enumclaw third graders scored in the top quarter of students from across the nation.

"We're moving kids at all levels is what that tells us and we feel good about that," Beals said.

Parents will receive individual results from the school district.

The district just finished testing ninth graders with a similar test. Results will be available at a later date.

Brenda Sexton can be reached at bsexton@courierherald.com