California's Literacy Reform Faces Implementation Challenges

This was a good read, and the message is especially relevant across the West. States have spent years strengthening literacy policy. Now comes the harder part: making sure those policies actually change instruction in every classroom. From Nevada and Utah to Idaho and Alaska, the next phase is about implementation—teacher support, strong materials, coaching, measuring progress, and staying committed long enough to see results. Passing a strong literacy law matters. Building a system that delivers on it matters even more. Worth a read: https://lnkd.in/gEcR6z5R #EarlyLiteracy #EducationPolicy

Darius Williams went viral for crying about his students’ literacy struggles on day two of teaching. The crisis he named is real and ongoing, but the fix is going to be slow and unglamorous, something that people probably won’t share. My latest op-ed for The Fulcrum is about why the literacy revolution won’t go viral….and what we need to pay attention to instead. https://lnkd.in/g85b4NKs

Small gains over time lead to reading improvement, not the "quick fix" or "one approach works for all". This process of daily work and long-term slow gains doesnt fit the story that reporters or bloggers want to sell. But this work is very real and there are research-based materials w proven effectiveness like #STARI SERP Institute . I wish Mr. Williams well and thank Stephanie Toliver, PhD for laying it out for us.

"Ultimately, the legislation will save teachers time by fixing gaps in our literacy training and curriculum that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. For far too long, teachers have been expected to use their own time and money to find supplemental materials to augment ineffective curricula, resulting in inconsistent outcomes across districts and teacher burnout." As frontline educators and leaders driving Massachusetts early literacy forward, the insights from these practitioners are vital to shaping effective, equitable instruction in our classrooms. Read more key perspectives on the new Literacy Law Jillian Geraghty, Luisa Sparrow, Jennifer Amento M.Ed and De'Shawn C. Washington, Ed.D. https://lnkd.in/gzagVwvM

Michigan’s new M-STEP results are out, and the third-grade ELA number is hard to ignore: 38.2% proficient. Michigan has put a lot of attention on literacy over the last few years. New training requirements, dyslexia screening, literacy coaches, Science of Reading work, curriculum changes. All of that matters. But this is also a reminder that changing policy is the easy part compared with changing outcomes. The real question now is what happens between the state-level strategy and the individual student who is still behind. Are we identifying students early enough? Are interventions happening often enough? Are schools able to provide the actual instructional time students need? Are we measuring progress along the way, or waiting until the next state assessment to find out whether it worked? I don’t think this is a reason to say the literacy reforms aren’t working. A lot of them are still relatively new. But 38.2% should create some urgency around implementation. The plans are in place. Now the focus has to be on whether they’re reaching students consistently enough to move the numbers.

Connecticut’s efforts to improve K-3 literacy are getting a boost through a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Gov. Ned Lamont and Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker announced the competitive award in a press release this week. https://buff.ly/C8GG5Bt

Across the United States, significant investment has gone into literacy reform. Science of Reading legislation. HQIM. Professional development. Yet the challenge remains: too many students are still not reading on or above grade level by Grade 3. Joy Allcock has spent more than two decades working to solve this problem. Trained as an occupational therapist, Joy brought a problem-solving discipline into education. She set out to understand exactly how children learn to read and write, and what teachers need to know and do to make literacy learning accessible to every student. Joy went on to complete her Master’s in Education with first-class honors, supervised by Professor Bill Tunmer, co-creator of the Simple View of Reading. Her work led to a fundamentally asset-based starting point: Every learner brings their own spoken vocabulary to the classroom. The words they can say, use, and understand. That is their language. Joy starts there, connecting the words students can say to the sounds within those words, and then to print. Speech-to-sound-to-print. One approach for every learner, differentiated by what each student knows and is ready to learn next. Joy’s approach was put to the test in the Shine Literacy Project, a two-year, all-comers literacy research project across 32 schools. The results showed something important: the approach leveled the playing field. Students who began further behind made some of the greatest gains, while students already progressing well continued to succeed. Today, education systems across the United States are grappling with the same challenge: How do we get more students reading on or above grade level by Grade 3? / In support of every learner / Discover Joy Allcock and Speech → Sound → Print → https://lnkd.in/gJ2grkR8 #EveryLearner #LiteracyLeadership #Grade3Reading #SpeechSoundPrint #JoyAllcock #BillTunmer

Throughout my career in education, I have seen schools invest significant time, resources, and professional learning into improving literacy outcomes. Those investments matter, but lasting improvement requires an instructional approach that helps teachers identify what each learner knows and build purposefully from there. Joy Allcock’s Speech-to-Sound-to-Print approach begins with an asset every child already possesses: spoken language. By connecting the words students know and understand to sounds and then to print, we can make literacy instruction more accessible while supporting every learner’s next step. This work offers an important perspective for school leaders and educators committed to helping more students become confident, successful readers by Grade 3.

Take the time to read this. The true priorities are seen in schedules, funding, conversations, PD. Change takes time. Improvement takes time. Growth is important.

As a district administrator and someone who has championed evidence-aligned literacy instruction, I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking about what these results mean and what we do next. My conclusion: we stay the course, but we look harder at our implementation. This summer, I had the opportunity to hear Timothy Shanahan speak at the Vermont Literacy Summit. His Reading Improvement Wheels have stayed with me, particularly the three factors closest to the student: amount of instruction, curriculum, and quality of instruction. Maybe the question isn’t simply, “Is the science of reading working?” Maybe we need to ask: Are students getting enough instruction? Is Tier 1 rigorous enough? Are we building knowledge and providing access to complex, grade-level work? Is Tier 2 targeted to the actual area of need? And are the systems surrounding teachers giving them the time and support to make all of this happen? Over the past month, I’ve also had the opportunity to spend time in Alabama and Vermont, two states where I saw an incredible collective focus on literacy. It made me think about what is possible for New York. I am a product of New York public schools. I come from a family of New York public school teachers. I was a teacher here for 16 years, and now I have the privilege of serving as a public school administrator. I believe deeply in our schools. New York can do this. But if literacy is truly the priority, we have to give schools the time, focus, resources, and funding to treat it like one. My latest Sundays with Sarah is about why disappointing scores aren't a reason to retreat. They are a reason to dig deeper into the systems that make great instruction possible. Read the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/ekU359We #ScienceOfReading #LiteracyLeadership #SchoolImprovement #EducationalLeadership #Literacy #Tier1 #MTSS #NewYorkEducation #SundayswithSarah #VermontReads #AlabamaReadingInitiative Dr. Pam Kastner Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan Erin Davis, Ph.D. Emily Lesh Emily Leute The Science of Reading Center at SUNY New Paltz