Savage Elementary School in Belleville got a surprise pep rally this week, and it had nothing to do with recess. Detroit Lions players, cheerleaders and mascot Roary showed up to get students fired up about reading, joined by children's author Lisa Wheeler for a literacy event that turned a Van Buren Township classroom into something closer to a Ford Field sideline.
According to ClickOnDetroit, the Lions helped Belleville students get excited about reading as part of the team's ongoing literacy push. Wheeler, who lives in Michigan and has written more than 40 children's books, brought her sports-themed storytelling to the event; her 2012 picture book *Dino-Football* uses rhyming dinosaurs to teach elementary readers about the game, according to Google Books.
A School Already Beating District Averages
Savage Elementary, which serves roughly 342 students in Pre-K through fourth grade in Van Buren Charter Township, has a student-teacher ratio of 18 to 1 and a minority enrollment rate of 46%, per Niche. The school has also outperformed its district on state reading tests. In the spring 2024 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, 52.7% of Savage third-graders reached English Language Arts proficiency, well above the 30.2% average across Van Buren Public Schools, according to The Belleville Independent.
That local success stands out against a bleaker statewide picture. Michigan's third-grade reading proficiency fell to 38.2% on the spring 2026 M-STEP assessments, continuing a slide from 39.6% in 2024 and 45% before the pandemic in 2019, the same outlet reports. Education officials treat third grade as a pivotal turning point, when students are expected to shift from learning to read toward reading to learn.
How State Reading Law Has Shifted
The policy landscape around early literacy in Michigan has changed substantially in recent years. Under the state's revised Read by Grade Three law, Public Act 7 of 2023, which took effect in February 2024, lawmakers eliminated mandatory third-grade retention for struggling readers while keeping requirements for individualized reading improvement plans and progress monitoring, per the Michigan Department of Education. Research from Michigan State University's Education Policy Innovation Collaborative found that during the three years Michigan enforced retention rules, from 2020 to 2023, districts granted exemptions to more than 90% of eligible students, actually holding back only about 0.5% of students statewide each year, according to MSUToday.
Separately, under Public Act 224 of 2023, Michigan public schools must now administer early literacy assessments to kindergarteners within their first 90 days of school and to students in grades 1 through 3 within their first 30 days, starting with the 2024-25 school year, according to Chalkbeat.
The Lions' Literacy Outreach
The Belleville visit was part of the Lions' ongoing literacy push, with players, cheerleaders and mascot Roary joining the event at Savage Elementary.
Mascot Roary joined the Lions at the Belleville literacy event.
