Bridging the gap: Why Arkansas teachers need continuous literacy training to support every student

Yahoo

05-03-2025

A person who has difficulty reading might interpret a page in a book as question marks. (Photo by)
I handed Blakely a list of sight words — simple words that 1st graders can read with ease. His face contorted with worry. He stumbled over where, small, said, and think. I read the words aloud and asked him to repeat them back.
As we worked, the rest of my 5th grade class tackled harder texts, finding main ideas in stories like 'The Importance of Bees.' For Blakely, those tasks were far out of reach. How could he read to learn when he was still learning to read?
At that moment, I felt powerless. In my 17 years of building reading skills for 3rd-5th graders, I was a master at teaching literacy, but no one had equipped me to support students like Blakely, whose reading was so far behind his classmates. I felt like I was letting him down because the teaching tools I had were insufficient for the challenges he faced.
Across Arkansas, countless students urgently need targeted literacy support. According to recent data from the Arkansas Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (ATLAS) platform, 64 percent of 5th graders are not proficient in reading. This literacy crisis demands immediate action.
Educators like me need access to teaching toolkits of phonemic awareness activities and differentiated small-group instruction ideas so that we can support students at every stage of reading development. One-time training is not enough; teachers need ongoing support so these interventions are implemented effectively and continuously.
While districts often focus on training for separate grade levels, such as K-2 and 3-5, the Arkansas Right to Read Act calls for a more integrated approach. To truly fulfill the promise of the act, districts must implement continuous, cross-grade-level training for educators that prioritizes foundational literacy skills.
One solution is pairing teachers in the early grades with those in upper elementary in a mentor-mentee structure, fostering collaboration and shared expertise over the entire school year. Teachers in grades 3-5 in particular must be trained in phonics, decoding, and other early literacy strategies to support students like Blakely who still struggle with these essential skills.
By using this approach, students will benefit from a cohesive, high-quality literacy education, progressing from early phonics instruction to more complex reading and comprehension tasks. Both Blakely and I could have benefited from a 1st-grade teacher's perspective on phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, and simple sentence structures, as these are critical building blocks for our 5th-grade standards of reading fluency and comprehension.
I didn't truly understand how to help Blakely until I began working with our school's literacy coach. She helped me incorporate phonics-based strategies into our small group work, such as finger-tapping sounds, using decodable books, and reinforcing word patterns. These techniques transformed my instruction and gave me the confidence to help Blakely learn to read. With the literary coach's support, many of my struggling readers became more engaged, tackling difficult words with persistence and gaining confidence.
According to Arkansas Department of Education data, the state now has more literacy coaches than before, yet 64% of our 5th graders remain below proficiency — a clear sign that more on-the-ground support is needed. Currently, a single coach often serves multiple schools, limiting their ability to provide sustained, individualized guidance. Every school needs a dedicated literacy coach to ensure that teachers receive consistent, in-the-moment support for struggling readers in need of targeted instruction.
Arkansas has taken a step in the right direction to bridge the literacy gap, but it's not enough. Every school needs a dedicated literacy coach, and every teacher needs ongoing training and the right material to support struggling readers. Blakely's success shouldn't be the exception — it should be the expectation.