Zach is a Legislative Director for ExcelinEd in Action. In this role, he works with leaders and lawmakers from the midwestern states to promote student-centered solutions.
Being able to read by the end of third grade is a critical juncture from learning to read to reading to learn. Without this foundational skill, students will continue to struggle and fall behind in future courses. As national trends continue to show a slowdown in reading progress, now is the time to double down on the commitment to early literacy. Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 policy has the right ingredients to help students, but with 69% of the state’s fourth-graders scoring below proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2019, there is more work to be done to strengthen literacy instruction and improve student outcomes.
Last week, Michigan’s Department of Education announced $51.4 million in federal COVID-19 grant funding to school districts to increase student achievement in early literacy, focusing additional instructional time for struggling readers in pre-K to third grade and training literacy coaches. Literacy coaches are an important tool for teachers in the classroom. They serve as a stable resource for job-embedded professional development to build master teachers of reading and improve student reading achievement.
The following state policy solutions can protect early literacy policies that are working and strengthen those that are not yet yielding positive results in Michigan.
Families can use these accounts to pay for part-time tutoring, summer and after-school literacy programs, instructional materials and more.
Teachers and parents are more fully realizing the impact of two pandemic-disrupted years on their child’s learning progress. Reading Scholarship Accounts can reduce the impact, especially for economically disadvantaged families.
Mississippi faced a similar situation and shifted the focus from professional development in the science of reading solely for current teachers toward taking a closer look at strengthening new teacher preparation.
In 2016, licensing requirements for elementary education majors changed, and teacher candidates are now required to demonstrate their knowledge and skills related to the science of reading. Colleges of education worked together with the Mississippi Department of Education and Barksdale Reading Institute to ensure that their pre-service students were learning the content needed to teach their students to read.
This year, both Tennessee and North Carolina passed legislation focused on educator professional development and teacher preparation, acknowledging that teacher knowledge of evidence-based literacy instruction is central to students’ reading development.
A screening assessment is a “first alert” that a student may need extra help to make adequate progress in reading during the year, including those who may have developmental reading disabilities. It also helps teachers tailor instruction to meet individual student needs. A screener designed to identify students with characteristics of dyslexia provides specific information for targeted interventions. According to Decoding Dyslexia, “it takes four times as long to intervene in fourth grade as it does in late kindergarten because of brain development and because of the increase in content for students to learn as they grow older.”
We cannot waste any time letting our students falling behind. Adopting a comprehensive early literacy policy is a great start to improving literacy outcomes for students, and the effective implementation of the policy’s components is critical to success.
