What if schools could see literacy problems before the test score arrives? Before the Score challenges educators and leaders to stop relying exclusively on lagging indicators-annual assessments, report cards, and end-of-cycle data-and start paying attention to the signals that can still change a student's trajectory. Drawing from classroom practice, Reading Corps intervention methods, curriculum design, differentiated assessment, leadership sensemaking, and responsible analytics, Antonio Mielak introduces a practical framework for identifying and acting on five leading indicators of literacy growth. The book shows teachers and school leaders how to recognize actionable literacy signals earlier/ turn student data into instructional decisions rather than labels/ organize productive, human-centered data meetings/ build student ownership of reading growth/ use technology without drifting into surveillance/ connect intervention, assessment, curriculum, and leadership/ create infrastructure that allows teams to act before failure becomes an outcome/ Grounded in the belief that data should direct support, not blame, Before the Score offers a practical operating system for schools that want to move from postmortem accountability to timely action. For teachers, instructional coaches, principals, district leaders, policymakers, and anyone asking a better question than "How did our students score?" The better question is: What could we have known sooner?