NATCHEZ — Two of the three Natchez-Adams elementary schools topped state benchmarks on a recent kindergarten learning assessment test with one school posting scores above the state average.

Joseph L. Frazier Elementary School reading students tested at an average score of 708, which topped the state average of 703. Students at McLaurin Elementary School posted a score of 689, and that topped the state’s benchmark score of 681. Susie B. West Elementary school students were below the benchmark score at an average of 673.

The overall average score in the district as a whole was 692 with 282 total test takers. This is an improvement of 225 points from the test given in the fall, which received a result of 467.

Frazier Principal Cynthia Lamkin said work remains to be done, but she was proud to see her school achieve this success in her first year as its principal. She gave the credit to her teachers.

“We have four dynamic teachers this year — Kirby Watts, the department head, Jennifer Matthews, Courtney Feltus and Stephanie Latham, in her first year as a kindergarten teacher,” Lamkin said. “I also contribute some of that to our dynamic literacy coach, sent from the Mississippi Department of Education, LaToya Clark. We also had an in-house literacy coach, Katie Wesley.”

Lamkin said the school had a “laser-like focus” on individualized instruction for the students taking this test — the STAR Early Literacy exam. An afterschool intervention program was also in place for students who needed it, and the school emphasized both student and teacher attendance.

“We were very, very deliberate in what we did in working with those students,” she said. “We continuously looked at the data, and let that decide what we needed to do.”

It’s important to let teachers focus on individualizing the learning because a blanket approach hasn’t always been successful in education, Lamkin said.

“If we both go to the doctor, me for a heart problem and you for a lung problem, but the doctor ends up giving us both medicine for a lung problem, that’s not really going to help me,” she said. “You need to make sure students are getting what they need.”

Lamkin said teaching literacy at the kindergarten level — and getting it right — is key for a student’s success throughout life.

“Kindergarten is the begining, and you have to begin with the end in mind,” she said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work in all levels of education, so I know where they are heading and what they need to do to get to the end.

“When I was at the high school level, year after year after year, we’d have to tell students they couldn’t graduate because they are not doing well on their performance tests. And the reason many of them weren’t testing well is because they were not reading very well.”

So while work still needs to be done to improve student skills, Lamkin said she wanted her teachers to use this success to motivate them.

“A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into these scores,” she said. “I can’t do anything but thank the teachers and support staff for making that happen.

“I’m ecstatic that we are going to have some really prepared first graders coming in.”

Students scoring 675 to 774 are transitional readers, meaning they have mastered the alphabet and are able to process simple words. Scores in a range of 488 to 674 signify the student can match most of the letters in the alphabet to their sounds and is beginning to understand the printed word through picture books.

Students in Franklin County topped the region with an average spring score of 756, while students in Jefferson, Amite and Wilkinson counties scored an average of 712, 694 and 667, respectively.

Scores around the state ranged from as low as 611 — at Hazlehurst Middle School and in the Durant Public School system — to as high as 769 at Kosciusko Lower Elementary School. The average score around the state topped last year’s, which was 680 in the spring.

“These scores demonstrate that our state’s kindergarten teachers did an even better job than last year helping students build the foundational literacy skills they need to be successful throughout their education,” said Dr. Kim Benton, chief academic officer for the Mississippi Department of Education. “Our schools’ and teachers’ focus on literacy is making a significant impact on student learning.”

Interim Superintendent Fred T. Butcher could not be reached for comment.