Reading advocates want state literacy funds directed to teacher training, ‘most neglected' schools
A third-grader at Brooklyn Primary School in a reading lesson led by Eastern Oregon University Professor Ronda Fritz. (Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
More than 250 Oregon schools since 2023 have gotten some portion of the state's Early Literacy Success Initiative grants, a pot of $90 million meant to pay for new elementary reading curriculum, reading tutors and after-school reading programs, and to train teachers in reading instruction backed by scientific study and review.
The term 'science of reading' is used to describe the large body of cognitive and neuroscience showing how the brain learns to read. Since the 1960s, hundreds of studies have been conducted to find the most effective ways to teach kids to read. Evidence shows that the human brain does not learn to read or write naturally but relies on explicit instruction in a specific set of skills.
As Gov. Tina Kotek proposes tweaks to the program — and asks the Legislature to approve $100 million more grant funding in the next two-year budget cycle — some literacy advocates are asking that the state direct more of the money to nearly four dozen schools that have the highest needs and require grants be used to pay for training in the 'science of reading' for all K-3 teachers and administrators across the state by the fall of 2027.
More than 100 educators signed an open letter drafted by the nonprofit advocacy group Oregon Kids Read asking the Legislature to tie the training requirement to Early Literacy Success Initiative grants.
Over the past 25 years, nearly two in five Oregon fourth graders and one in five eighth graders have scored 'below basic' on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the nation's report card. That means they struggle to read and understand simple words.
The nearly 10,000 elementary school teachers in Oregon learned different methods for teaching reading depending on where they went to college. Many colleges are failing to prepare teachers to teach reading, according to a recent analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
On Wednesday, Kotek's proposal to tweak her bedrock literacy initiative — House Bill 3040 — will get a vote in the House Education Committee. It updates the 2023 Early Literacy Success Initiative legislation so that schools could spend their literacy grants on training classroom assistants, not just teachers and administrators.
It would also require grant money spent on new reading curriculum for grades K-5 to be used on instructional materials approved by the State Board of Education and would create a regional network of literacy experts housed in the Oregon Department of Education to support school and district literacy specialists and help with coaching.
'As we continue to roll out the Early Literacy Success Initiative, we owe it to our students to stay focused on the details and get this right,' Kotek said in a news release.
SPECIAL REPORT: Oregon fails to turn page on reading: $250 million spent in 25 years
But advocates at Oregon Kids Read want the governor to go further. In a news release Thursday, they said they are asking Kotek and Legislators to amend the bill to direct 20% of the $100 million grant funding to 42 of the state's 'most neglected' schools.
Those schools have the highest percentage of third through fifth graders not reading at grade level since at least 2018. The schools, including Caesar Chavez K-8 School in Portland and Washington Elementary School in Salem, also have a higher than average percentage of students who are Black, Hispanic or Latino, Indigenous, rural or experiencing poverty.
Of the 42 elementary schools Oregon Kids Read identified, 12 are in the Salem-Keizer School District, the most of any single district in the state. Salem-Keizer is the state's second-largest school district, with about 40,000 students and a higher proportion of low-income students than the state average.
Schuberth, a volunteer with the group, said in an email that 20% — or $20 million — would be best used for targeted time with a literacy tutor throughout the school year. That isn't enough for all children in those 42 schools to access reading tutors, 'but it's a start,' Schuberth said.
Targeting 20% to those schools would work out to about $476,000 per school, or roughly 20% more than the average $363,000 each school received during the last biennium in literacy grants.
'Families in California had to sue to get their state to do the right thing and target literacy funding to their lowest performing schools,' Angela Uherbelau, founder of Oregon Kids Read, said in the news release.
In 2017, students in three LA-area school districts struggling to read sued the state of California for violating their civil rights by denying them a quality education. In a settlement reached three years later, the state agreed to allocate $50 million to improve literacy instruction in 75 California elementary schools where students have the lowest literacy rates.
Uherbelau said accountability for spending and student outcomes in reading and writing in the coming years will certainly focus on districts, but 'the buck stops at the state.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Opinion: How do Kids Learn to Read? There Are as Many Ways as There Are Students
This article was originally published in The Conversation. Five years after the pandemic forced children into remote instruction, two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders still cannot read at grade level. Reading scores lag 2 percentage points below 2022 levels and 4 percentage points below 2019 levels. This data from the 2024 report of National Assessment of Educational Progress, a state-based ranking sometimes called 'America's report card,' has concerned educators scrambling to boost reading skills. Many school districts have adopted an evidence-based literacy curriculum called the 'science of reading' that features phonics as a critical component. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Phonics strategies begin by teaching children to recognize letters and make their corresponding sounds. Then they advance to manipulating and blending first-letter sounds to read and write simple, consonant-vowel-consonant words – such as combining 'b' or 'c' with '-at' to make 'bat' and 'cat.' Eventually, students learn to merge more complex word families and to read them in short stories to improve fluency and comprehension. Proponents of the curriculum celebrate its grounding in brain science, and the science of reading has been credited with helping Louisiana students outperform their pre-pandemic reading scores last year. In practice, Louisiana used a variety of science of reading approaches beyond phonics. That's because different students have different learning needs, for a variety of reasons. Yet as a scholar of reading and language who has studied literacy in diverse student populations, I see many schools across the U.S. placing a heavy emphasis on the phonics components of the science of reading. If schools want across-the-board gains in reading achievement, using one reading curriculum to teach every child isn't the best way. Teachers need the flexibility and autonomy to use various, developmentally appropriate literacy strategies as needed. Related Phonics programs often require memorizing word families in word lists. This works well for some children: Research shows that 'decoding' strategies such as phonics can support low-achieving readers and learners with dyslexia. However, some students may struggle with explicit phonics instruction, particularly the growing population of neurodivergent learners with autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These students learn and interact differently than their mainstream peers in school and in society. And they tend to have different strengths and challenges when it comes to word recognition, reading fluency and comprehension. This was the case with my own child. He had been a proficient reader from an early age, but struggles emerged when his school adopted a phonics program to balance out its regular curriculum, a flexible literature-based curriculum called Daily 5 that prioritizes reading fluency and comprehension. I worked with his first grade teacher to mitigate these challenges. But I realized that his real reading proficiency would likely not have been detected if the school had taught almost exclusively phonics-based reading lessons. Another weakness of phonics, in my experience, is that it teaches reading in a way that is disconnected from authentic reading experiences. Phonics often directs children to identify short vowel sounds in word lists, rather than encounter them in colorful stories. Evidence shows that exposing children to fun, interesting literature promotes deep comprehension. To support different learning styles, educators can teach reading in multiple ways. This is called balanced literacy, and for decades it was a mainstay in teacher preparation and in classrooms. Balanced literacy prompts children to learn words encountered in authentic literature during guided, teacher-led read-alouds – versus learning how to decode words in word lists. Teachers use multiple strategies to promote reading acquisition, such as blending the letter sounds in words to support 'decoding' while reading. Another balanced literacy strategy that teachers can apply in phonics-based strategies while reading aloud is called 'rhyming word recognition.' The rhyming word strategy is especially effective with stories whose rhymes contribute to the deeper meaning of the story, such as Marc Brown's 'Arthur in a Pickle.' After reading, teachers may have learners arrange letter cards to form words, then tap the letter cards while saying and blending each sound to form the word. Similar phonics strategies include tracing and writing letters to form words that were encountered during reading. There is no one right way to teach literacy in a developmentally appropriate, balanced literacy framework. There are as many ways as there are students. Related The push for the phonics-based component of the science of reading is a response to the discrediting of the Lucy Calkins Reading Project, a balanced literacy approach that uses what's called 'cueing' to teach young readers. Teachers 'cue' students to recognize words with corresponding pictures and promote guessing unfamiliar words while reading based on context clues. A 2024 class action lawsuit filed by Massachusetts families claimed that this faulty curriculum and another cueing-based approach called Fountas & Pinnell had failed readers for four decades, in part because they neglect scientifically backed phonics instruction. But this allegation overlooks evidence that the Calkins curriculum worked for children who were taught basic reading skills at home. And a 2021 study in Georgia found modest student achievement gains of 2% in English Language Arts test scores among fourth graders taught with the Lucy Calkins method. Related Nor is the method unscientific. Using picture cues with corresponding words is supported by the predictable language theory of literacy. This approach is evident in Eric Carle's popular children's books. Stories such as the 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' and 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?' have vibrant illustrations of animals and colors that correspond with the text. The pictures support children in learning whole words and repetitive phrases, suchg as, 'But he was still hungry.' The intention here is for learners to acquire words in the context of engaging literature. But critics of Calkins contend that 'cueing' during reading is a guessing game. They say readers are not learning the fundamentals necessary to identify sounds and word families on their way to decoding entire words and sentences. As a result, schools across the country are replacing traditional learn-to-read activities tied to balanced literacy approaches with the science of reading. Since its inception in 2013, the phonics-based curriculum has been adopted by 40 states and the Disctrict of Columbia. The most scientific way to teach reading, in my opinion, is by not applying the same rigid rules to every child. The best instruction meets students where they are, not where they should be. Here are five evidence-based tips to promote reading for all readers that combine phonics, balanced literacy and other methods. 1. Maintain the home-school connection. When schools send kids home with developmentally appropriate books and strategies, it encourages parents to practice reading at home with their kids and develop their oral reading fluency. Ideally, reading materials include features that support a diversity of learning strategies, including text, pictures with corresponding words and predictable language. 2. Embrace all reading. Academic texts aren't the only kind of reading parents and teachers should encourage. Children who see menus, magazines and other print materials at home also acquire new literacy skills. 3. Make phonics fun. Phonics instruction can teach kids to decode words, but the content is not particularly memorable. I encourage teachers to teach phonics on words that are embedded in stories and texts that children absolutely love. 4. Pick a series. High-quality children's literature promotes early literacy achievement. Texts that become increasingly more complex as readers advance, such as the 'Arthur' step-into-reading series, are especially helpful in developing reading comprehension. As readers progress through more complex picture books, caregivers and teachers should read aloud the 'Arthur' novels until children can read them independently. Additional popular series that grow with readers include 'Otis,' 'Olivia,' 'Fancy Nancy' and 'Berenstain Bears.' 5. Tutoring works. Some readers will struggle despite teachers' and parents' best efforts. In these cases, intensive, high-impact tutoring can help. Sending students to one session a week of at least 30 minutes is well documented to help readers who've fallen behind catch up to their peers. Many nonprofit organizations, community centers and colleges offer high-impact tutoring. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Could phonics solve California's reading crisis? Inside the push for sweeping changes
To look inside Julie Celestial's kindergarten classroom in Long Beach is to peer into the future of reading in California. During a recent lesson, 25 kindergartners gazed at the whiteboard, trying to sound out the word 'bee.' They're learning the long 'e' sound, blending words such as 'Pete' and 'cheek' — words that they'll soon be able to read in this lesson's accompanying book. Celestial was teaching something new for Long Beach Unified: phonics. 'It's pretty cool to watch,' she said. 'I'm really anticipating that there's going to be a lot less reluctant readers and struggling readers now that the district has made this shift.' These phonics-based lessons are on the fast track to become law in California under a sweeping bill moving through the Legislature that will mandate how schools teach reading, a rare action in a state that generally emphasizes local school district control over dictating instruction. The bill is the capstone to decades of debate and controversy in California on how best to teach reading amid stubbornly low test scores. Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged his support, setting aside $200 million to fund teacher training on the new approach in the May revise of his 2025-26 budget proposal. 'It's a big deal for kids, and it's a big step forward — a very big one,' said Marshall Tuck, chief executive of EdVoice, an education advocacy nonprofit that has championed the change. California has long struggled with reading scores below the national average. In 2024, only 29% of California's fourth-graders scored 'proficient' or better in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. The proposed law, which would take effect in phases beginning in 2026, would require districts to adopt instructional materials based on the 'science of reading,' a systemic approach to literacy instruction supported by decades of research about the way young children learn to read, from about transitional kindergarten through third grade. The science of reading consists of five pillars: phonemic awareness (the sounds that letters make), phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. 'It's finite. There's only 26 letters and 44 sounds,' said Leslie Zoroya, who leads an initiative at the Los Angeles County Office of Education that helps districts transition to a science-of-reading approach. 'Phonics isn't forever.' After a failed effort last year, the bill gained the support this year of the influential California teachers unions and at least one advocacy group for English-language learners. In a compromise, school districts would have more flexibility to select which instructional materials are best for their students and the option to decline teacher training paid for by the state. For decades, most school districts in California have been devoted to a different approach called 'whole language' or 'balanced literacy,' built on the belief that children naturally learn to read without being taught how to sound out words. Teachers focus on surrounding children with books intended to foster a love of reading and encourage them to look for clues that help them guess unknown words — such as predicting the next word based on the context of the story, or looking at the pictures — rather than sounding them out. 'The majority of students require a more intentional, explicit and systematic approach,' Zoroya said. 'Thousands of kids across California in 10th grade are struggling in content-area classes because they missed phonics.' California embraced the whole language approach to literacy, which took hold in the 1970s and 1980s, said Susan Neuman, a New York University professor who served as assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education under former President George W. Bush. The state became a national leader in what was considered a progressive and holistic approach to teaching literacy, with a focus on discovering the joy of reading, rather than learning specific skills, she said. Bush then incorporated a phonics-heavy approach in an initiative that was part of his 2002 launch of No Child Left Behind, which increased the federal role in holding schools accountable for academic progress and required standardized testing. States, including California, received grants to teach a science-of-reading approach in high-poverty schools. But many teachers in the state disliked the more regimented approach, and when the funding ended, districts largely transitioned back to the whole language approach. In the years since, science of reading continues to draw opposition from teachers unions and advocates for dual-language learners. Many California teachers are passionate about the methods they already use and have chafed at a state-mandated approach to literacy education. Some don't like what they describe as 'drill and kill' phonics lessons that teach letter sounds and decoding. Advocates for multiple-language learners, meanwhile, vociferously opposed adopting the most structured approach, worried that children who were still learning to speak English would not receive adequate support in language development and comprehension. A 2022 study of 300 school districts in California found that less than 2% of districts were using curricula viewed as following the science of reading. But the research has become clear: Looking at the pictures or context of a story to guess a word — as is encouraged in whole language or balanced literacy instruction, leads to struggles with reading. Children best learn to read by starting with foundational skills such as sounding out and decoding words. 'Anything that takes your eyes off the text when a kid is trying to figure out a word activates the wrong side of the brain,' Zoroya said. In the last few years, several larger districts in California have started to embrace more structured phonics learning, including Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified and Oakland Unified. Recently, these districts have started to see improvement in their reading test scores. At Long Beach Unified, for example, the district's in-house assessment shows significant gains among kindergarten students. In 2023-24, 78% of them met reading standards, up 13 percentage points from the previous school year. Proficiency rates across first and second grade were above 70%, and transitional kindergarten was at 48%. The district's goal is to hit 85% proficiency across grades by the end of each school year. In 2019, LAUSD introduced a pilot science-of-reading based curriculum, and adopted it across all schools for the 2023-24 academic year. After the first year, LAUSD reading scores improved in every grade level and across every demographic, chief academic officer Frances Baez said. From the 2022-23 to the 2023-24 school years, LAUSD's English Language Arts scores improved by 1.9 percentage points — five times more than the state as a whole, which improved by 0.3, she said. Teresa Cole, a kindergarten instructor in the Lancaster School District, has been teaching for 25 years. So when Lancaster asked her to try out a new way of teaching her students to read three years ago, she wasn't thrilled. 'I was hesitant and apprehensive to try it,' she said, but decided to throw herself into a new method that promised results. Teaching kindergarten is a challenge, she said, because children come in at vastly different stages. Many are just learning to hold a pencil; others can already read. She was seeing many children under 'balanced literacy' lessons slip through the cracks — especially those with limited vocabularies. When she asked them to read words they didn't know, 'it almost felt like they were guessing.' But as she began to teach a phonics lesson each morning and have them read decodable books — which have children practice the new sound they've learned — she noticed that her students were putting together the information much faster and starting to sound out words. 'The results were immediate,' she said. 'We were blown away.' She was so impressed with the new curriculum that she started training other teachers in the district to use it as well. Looking back at her old method of teaching reading, 'I feel bad. I feel like maybe I wasn't the best teacher back then,' Cole said. Part of the change, she said, was learning about the science behind how children learn to read. 'I would never say to guess [a word] anymore,' she said. This kind of buy-in and enthusiasm from teachers has been key to making the new curriculum work, said Krista Thomsen, Lancaster's director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Department. In schools where the teachers are implementing the program well, scores have started to rise. 'But it's a steep learning curve,' she said, especially for teachers who have long taught a balanced literacy approach. 'We are stumbling through this process trying to get it right and making sure that every one of our kids has equitable access to learning how to read,'Thomsen said. 'But we have every faith and every intention, and the plan is in place to get it where it should be going.' A bill introduced by Assemblymember Blanca E. Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) last year requiring a science-of-reading approach in California public schools did not even get a first hearing. This year, Rubio introduced another version — Assembly Bill 1121 — that would have required teachers to be trained in a science-of-reading approach. Opponents included the California Teachers Assn. and English-language learner advocates, who said in a joint letter that the bill would put a 'disproportionate emphasis on phonics,' and would not focus on the skills needed by students learning English as a second language. The groups also voiced concern that the bill would cut teachers out of the curriculum-selection process and that mandated training 'undermines educators' professional expertise and autonomy to respond to the specific learning needs of their students.' Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, said the group opposed both bills because they were too narrow in their focus on skills such as phonics. 'They're essential. But English learners need more, right?' she said. 'They don't understand the language that they're learning to read.' Rubio said she was shocked by the pushback. 'I was thinking it was a no-brainer. It's about kids. This is evidence-based.' Rubio, a longtime teacher, was born in Mexico, and was herself an English-language learner in California public schools. In 2024, just 19% of Latino students and 7% of Black students scored at or above 'proficient' on the fourth-grade NAEP reading test. But with the support of Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), the groups reached a compromise that not all teachers would be required to participate in the teacher training. Hernandez said she was pleased that the compromise included more of an emphasis on oral language development and comprehension, which is vital for multi-language learners to succeed. AB1454 requires the State Board of Education to come up with a new list of recommended materials that all follow science of reading principles. If a district chooses materials not on the list, they have to vouch that it also complies. The state will provide funds for professional development, though districts can choose whether to accept it. This article is part of The Times' early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to
Newsweek
29-05-2025
- Newsweek
Teacher Gives 4th Graders Anonymous 'Question Box'—Results Raise Eyebrows
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A fourth grade teacher has gone viral for showcasing the questions she got from her students when she allowed them to ask "any question they like." The teacher, who did not give her name but who posts to Reddit under the username u/goatsnsheeps, took to the r/pics sub on May 27, where she explained: "I have a question box where my 4th grade students can put in any question they like. Here are some." She explained in the comment section that she usually takes 10 minutes at the end of each day to answer the questions, some of which require research on her end so she can study the subject herself and relay it to the students in a way they will understand. Some of those questions were illustrated in the post, as she shared handwritten notes from her students asking things like "why do feet sweat," "how were languages made," "when did people discover colors," and "how does our body work? How does it bend easily?" Other questions were more subjective, like "when did people discover beautiful art," while some were straightforward: "When was coffee invented?" and the elementary-school favorite: "Who invented homework?" Among these questions were some more bizarre ponderings: "Why was brain rot made," and "What grass made out of," being a favorite among commenters in the post, which racked up more than 24,000 upvotes. One commenter wrote under the post, racking up more than 14,000 upvoted of their own: "WHAT GRASS MADE OUT OF?" with one person replying simply: "Green," and another joking: "But what was it called before people discovered colors?" One commenter advised the teacher: "Keep an eye on the 'who invented homework' kid. He seeks vengeance." Another said: "When did people discover beautiful art' is such an endearing and innocent question that most likely has an equally beautiful answer." One user suggested that the questions asked was a "very interesting display of the students' academic levels. Some seem way more advanced than their peers," with another pointing out that the students would have started kindergarten in 2020, and "a year or two of learning at home during a pandemic might be why there's such a range in abilities." Pictured: Stock image of a group of schoolchildren and their teacher in an elementary school classroom. Pictured: Stock image of a group of schoolchildren and their teacher in an elementary school classroom. dolgachov/Getty Images Studies have shown there is some merit to this concern: in January 2025, a report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that the reading and math skills of fourth and eighth-grade students have declined in multiple states to below the national average. Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told reporters that they are "not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic," according to Education Week. The Reddit user wrote in a comment that all of her students ask "big questions," but they often reflect their "own personal interests." "For example, I have kids who ask a lot about cats and asked 'What is the world record for owning the most cats' and they have cats at home. Or I have students who play sports who submitted 'what was the first sport ever played?'" she said. She added: "Since starting this, the students and I both find it extremely rewarding," and she tries to "answer every single [question] as best I can." Newsweek has contacted u/goatsnsheeps via Reddit for comment on this story. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures you want to share? Send them to life@ with some extra details, and they could appear on our website.
