(AP) — Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers are making third-graders' ability to read a significant focus this year, emphasizing still-evolving plans to improve kids' literacy long before they're 8 or 9 years old. Under the Republican governor, for example, the state has set aside $130 million more a year to help more low-income kids attend preschool — a bid to improve their school readiness. [...] grade is considered a key benchmark because it's the last year students learn to read before transitioning to reading to learn. Students actually have been taking the third-grade reading test at the start of fourth grade, which will change to spring of third grade this May when the state replaces the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) with the new Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). Instead of roughly 31,000, or 30 percent, being held back, it likely would be around 2,600, or 2.5 percent, of third-graders, said Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a school-choice advocacy group. Another 2.5 percent would still move to fourth grade by qualifying for various "good cause" exemptions — showing reading proficiency through an alternative test, for instance, or having a learning disability or limited English skills.