To put these results in perspective, four years ago, the third grade ELA proficiency rate was 40% 鈥� nearly 30 points below its pre-pandemic highs. Moreover, according to a Universal Reading Screener, our kindergarten to second grade students were demonstrating mastery at levels far below prior cohorts. 

As executive director of the charter school, I recognized that the problem was not a lack of effort. When our staff observed classrooms, we saw teachers and leaders working incredibly hard. However, we also saw many ineffective practices, especially in our youngest grades: centers where students colored without purpose or attention, letter sounds introduced without sufficient practice, and Youtube videos replacing the joy of books read-aloud. It was no surprise so many third and fourth grade students struggled to read fluently, write complete sentences or access complex texts. 

Over the next four years, we changed almost everything about our K-5 literacy program. Today, our Title I school ranks in the state鈥檚 top 3% for 3rd Grade ELA achievement, outscoring every district in the state of Tennessee, including districts with far less diversity and far greater resources. While these results are extraordinary, the work we did was anything but. In fact, I am confident it can be replicated by any school or district. 

Here are six practices that moved the needle most. 

The Science of Reading is the tip of the iceberg. Starting in 2022, Tennessee began to implement training and curricula rooted in the Science of Reading, which we embraced and incorporated. Along the way, we learned that this evidence-based approach rests upon a broader foundation of cognitive and social science. This research has not reached most American teachers and school districts. Over the past two years 鈥� thanks to organizations like , , and 鈥� we explored the science of learning. 

Based on what we learned, we overhauled our approach to coaching and development. Today, every teacher at Nashville Classical is trained on basic concepts like the importance of securing and harnessing attention, the difference between working and long-term memory, the importance of background knowledge and the need to support encoding and retrieval. If you walk into a third grade classroom today, you might see students with a knowledge organizer on ancient Rome, quietly self-quizzing themselves on terms like patricians and plebeians. These simple daily practices are supported by science, but implementing them is not rocket science. Very few schools or districts have shared these practices with their teachers, which is a tragedy because anyone can learn them and every teacher deserves to know them. 

Don鈥檛 teach skills 鈥� build knowledge. features a listening comprehension strand, which we use to build background knowledge. In younger grades, we reinforce key terms, timelines and vocabulary through daily oral drills, content-focused songs and frequent opportunities to repeat ideas through 鈥渢urn and talks.鈥� As students move into tested grades, they practice reading short passages and answering multiple choice questions. But we avoid teaching test tricks like 鈥渃rossing out wrong answers鈥� or lessons on 鈥渉ow to find the main idea.鈥� Instead, our teachers ask themselves 鈥淲hat background knowledge or vocabulary might prevent students from understanding this passage?鈥� and 鈥淗ow can I build their knowledge to increase their comprehension?.鈥� By eliminating time spent trying to teach abstract 鈥渃ritical thinking,鈥� we have more time to build knowledge and vocabulary, which are the actual building blocks of comprehension.

Fluency 鈥� in all its forms 鈥� unlocks growth. Our benchmark assessment system measures fluency across grade levels, including for letter sounds, word reading, oral reading and silent reading. Our team took time to deeply understand the importance of each of these domains and unpacked what a fluent reader could think and do at each stage of their development, from kindergarten to middle school. Unfortunately, , prioritizing sound or word reading fluency at the expense of fluent reading in context. Our team worked to align vision of reading excellence across grades, which meant teachers were working toward a shared picture of what proficient young readers and successful adults readers can do down to the tiniest details of exactly how many words per minute a third grader should be able to read silently and what sorts of affixes, word roots, and phrases made passages appropriate for each grade. This level of granular detail meant teachers could identify students at risk early and clearly, intervening to provide the right support to the right students. 

Writing is thinking. We invested significant time in teaching students to write, starting in kindergarten. Our approach is rooted in with a focus on three areas. First, students write about complex topics directly connected to the knowledge and content they are reading about. So, our kindergarteners learn to speak in complete sentences while explaining what happens in nursery rhymes, our first graders learn to write sentences about Aesop鈥檚 Fables, and our second graders learn to write their first paragraphs about Greek myths. Next, our teaching focuses on sentence-level activities. By third grade, students have learned to expand, distill and express their ideas in complex and complete sentences. Finally, we teach students to revise. Teachers frequently display student work on document cameras, analyze it and then prompt students to apply concepts to their own work. 

Books belong in classrooms. Across the country, and many curricula emphasize short passages or excerpts. We believe books belong in classrooms and have selected curricula 鈥� Core Knowledge, Fishtank and Reading Reconsidered 鈥� built on this belief. Great books expose children to beautiful stories that have or will stand the test of time. When a classroom of second graders reaches the end of Charlotte鈥檚 Web, there is not a dry eye in sight and they are joining a cultural conversation that stretches across grades and generations. We鈥檝e found that the experience of reading great literature has grown our children鈥檚 attention and shaped their identity in the best way possible. There is a tradition of literacy and reading at our school, which we hope students carry with them long after they graduate. 

Play the long game. We are fortunate to have an incredible team of teachers and leaders who work with our elementary students. They deserve all of the credit for these achievements and many of them stayed at our schools through a period of significant change, where we implemented new curricula, changed schedules and raised expectations. We made many mistakes along the way, but always tried to balance the pain of changing too fast with the cost of changing too slowly. While we knew that we would not see gains happen overnight, we always believed positive habits would compound each day. For our curriculum and coaching to make a difference, we needed to stop implementation of any number of distracting, shiny objects: digital tutors, complex intervention programs, AI-everything, etc. We learned that investments in the practice and delivery of instruction may not pay off the fastest, but they take you the farthest. 

Today, I鈥檓 not just the leader of our school:  I鈥檓 a parent. And something else happened around the same time our third graders took their state test 鈥� my son, a kindergartener, learned to read. This summer, while I spent a late night hunched over a laptop to analyze results, he was upstairs reading Dog Man under his covers. 

Every kid deserves the type of teaching my son got in kindergarten and will get in the years to come. The only way to make that happen is for more schools to implement the ordinary practices that create extraordinary classrooms and outcomes. 

Schools can鈥檛 鈥渋mplement鈥� those facts any more than auto factories can 鈥渋mplement鈥� climate science or the Detroit Tigers鈥檚 general manager can 鈥渋mplement鈥� baseball analytics. 

Put simpler: the science of reading represents what we know about how kids learn to read and what practices 鈥� like explicit vocabulary and phonics instruction 鈥� support that learning. But it is not, in and of itself, a model to simply apply to a classroom. 

This hasn鈥檛 stopped some critics from worrying that this research consensus requires a narrow, inflexible teaching approach that is inappropriate for some kids. In particular, advocates for English learner students in have expressed concerns that the science of reading is not suited for these children. Some have worried that reforming literacy instruction in English could distract 鈥� or even discourage 鈥� schools from supporting English learners as they develop in their home languages as well. 

Fortunately, from Joanna Yip, a policy lead at the Education Trust-New York, an education advocacy organization focused on civil rights in that state, outlines a constructive path forward to 鈥渃enter the needs of multilingual learners as part of a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction for all students.鈥�

Yip鈥檚 report provides a series of recommendations for improving literacy for English learners in the state. For instance, it calls for state leaders to overhaul future literacy training with support from experts with knowledge of English learners鈥� linguistic development pathways. Teachers should leave those training sessions with strategies for advancing English learners鈥� oral language development, as well as a heightened awareness of the ways that these students鈥� emerging bilingual abilities can strengthen their literacy skills in both of their languages.

It also suggests they ensure that teachers can provide 鈥渆vidence-based literacy support across P-12 for students who are new to the country and in the initial stages of literacy development in English.鈥� that these students benefit when teachers help them 鈥渂ridge鈥� knowledge and skills from their first languages into English. A young student might, for instance, be a confident reader in Spanish or Arabic; effective literacy instruction will help her strengthen those skills and also use them to improve as a reader in English.

It also argues that this greater systemwide commitment to English learners鈥� literacy should include expanding access to programs that support their bilingualism and biliteracy. Programs that teach English learners in both languages are especially well positioned to help students grasp the core components of language from grammar to syntax and beyond. That is, when English learners are learning to read in multiple languages, they can compare and contrast them to deepen their understanding of each. 

As my co-author and I wrote in an article : 鈥淐rucially, these (sorts of) activities extend the core research often cited as Science of Reading, but they do not replace them.鈥� Teachers do not need to avoid, modify or deviate from the consensus on how best to teach English literacy when working with English learners. Just like English-dominant children, these students benefit from the science of reading鈥檚 core components, things like the explicit teaching of vocabulary and phonics, as well as instruction that helps children practice smooth, fluent decoding of text. 

For English learners, quality literacy instruction in English means , like supporting their development in their first languages and helping them make connections with elements of the English language. 

Yip鈥檚 report credits New York for its 鈥渟trong history of supporting multilingual learners,鈥� and notes that this 鈥渃an serve as a foundation for future state policy development.鈥� It is true that New York has been a gateway destination for linguistically and culturally diverse immigrants to the United States since the Colonial Era. As such, its K鈥�12 schools have deep institutional experience providing multilingual children with opportunities to learn English, acclimate to English-dominant U.S. society and .听

In recent years, the state has made considerable efforts to improve how public schools serve these children, most notably through its 2014 and 2025 . The toolkit offers ideas for how teachers can support English learners鈥� English literacy in multilingual settings. For instance, while English and Spanish do not share perfectly identical phonological structures, there are some points of overlap. Teachers can use these similarities and differences to help students鈥� literacy in both languages. 

They can, , show students that the letter 鈥渇鈥� makes the same sound in English as it does in Spanish, while also instructing students in the many other ways that English spelling can represent that sound (i.e. 鈥減h鈥� as in 鈥減honeme鈥� or 鈥済h鈥� as in 鈥渆nough鈥�). 

However, the report charges that New York schools have not done enough to incorporate English learners in their recent literacy reforms, relying mostly on voluntary guidance and 鈥渦neven implementation鈥� instead of systemic improvements. What鈥檚 more, it notes that literacy teaching and instructional materials that are not research- or evidence-based remain too common in New York public education 鈥� which harms English learners and English-dominant students alike. 

For instance, in 2024, the state launched a major literacy reform that provided $10 million in funding to the New York State United Teachers, its main teachers union. The funding supported professional development for teachers around literacy instruction鈥� that the resulting training did not align with the research behind the science of reading.

Yip鈥檚 recommendations are excellent and would bring New York more fully into alignment with the research on how English learners learn best. While these students鈥� linguistic development is unique, as they are simultaneously growing language proficiencies in more than one language, the early literacy research that we refer to when we talk about the science of reading is also useful guidance for teaching them to read in English.听

In other words, they should not miss out on the phonics instruction, explicit teaching of vocabulary and other foundational elements of the science of reading that help all students learn to read. If New York is able to systemically advance these priorities in its literacy instruction without abandoning its long and deep commitment to students鈥� multilingualism and multiliteracy, that would be a model for other states 鈥� particularly those blessed with large numbers of English learners 鈥� to follow. 

The views expressed here are Conor P. Williams鈥檚 alone, and do not reflect those of his employer or any other affiliated organizations.

The (S.4689) would strengthen the federal government鈥檚 oversight of the science of reading through amendments to the , which currently provides $194 million to aid literacy instruction in 23 states.听

鈥淐apable students are dropping out of high school simply because they were never taught to read,鈥� said U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana. 鈥淭his legislation aims to address the national literacy crisis by strengthening evidence-based literacy instruction 鈥� and empowering states, local communities and parents with more resources.鈥�

After the bill鈥檚 20-2 passage out of the Senate HELP Committee, it now heads to the floor for a full senate vote. Other bills, including one that would explicitly identify dyslexia as a learning disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also passed Thursday.

The READ Act closely mirrors and expands on a similar bill that unanimously passed the House of Representative鈥檚 Education Committee in March, but has not yet been taken up for a full House vote.

Both the Senate and House bill aim to define the science of reading in federal law as instruction that teaches phonics and phonemic awareness and also builds vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, oral language and writing skills. 

A report released earlier this year found nearly a third of teachers still used 鈥渄iscredited鈥� methods to teach kids how to read and aren鈥檛 fully committed to the science of reading. Both bills, however, would reject the use of federal funds for other teaching methods, such as three-cueing, where students are asked to figure out unfamiliar words through context clues or pictures.

The READ Act further includes proposals for prioritizing federal support for the bottom 10% of underperforming states and shifting funding of individual literacy projects to more systematic widespread efforts like requirements for early literacy screening.

It also has language that calls for teacher preparation program audits, expands professional development opportunities and creates new requirements for states to provide more detailed annual reports with the number of students receiving intervention, the number of teachers receiving professional development and the number of districts using high-quality learning materials aligned with the science of reading if they鈥檙e receiving the grant.

Keri Rodrigues, co-founder and president of the National Parents Union, said the bill’s passage out of committee is the result of years of advocacy from families.

鈥淭his is a bill that codifies the fact that the sky is blue,鈥� Rodrigues said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just very excited that folks are seeing the importance of this, and we’re able to finally get [lawmakers] to show they can prioritize kids, they can be swayed based on evidence, they can actually make good decisions for kids and frankly do the right thing in what is a very difficult political climate.鈥�

Lawmakers on Thursday also considered the (S.3010), another piece of legislation that would affect students who are learning to read.

The 21st Century Dyslexia Act proposed to add and explicitly define dyslexia as a disability covered under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 鈥� requiring schools to provide accommodations and other services needed for dyslexic students to be successful in the classroom.

Under IDEA, students with 鈥溾�� are protected, but Cassidy argued that making dyslexia a disability category 鈥� similar to what was done with 鈥� would 鈥渋ncrease screening, identification and the number of students receiving appropriate accommodations.”

鈥淲hen reading scores haven’t moved and 20% of readers are dyslexic 鈥� and therefore learn to read differently 鈥� we either choose or choose not to do something positive for these students,鈥� Cassidy said. 鈥淚f we’re serious about addressing the inexcusably low literacy rates, we must pass this bill.鈥�

More than a dozen organizations, including The Reading League, National Center for Learning Disabilities and International Dyslexia Association , with concerns it would undermine support and confuse states.

In a written statement, the organizations also argued the legislation could be harmful because it used an outdated definition of dyslexia from the early 2000s. A new definition, which removed old IQ-discrepancy requirements, was from the International Dyslexia Association.

Democratic lawmakers, such as Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, brought up the challenges Thursday. 

鈥淭here are 27 states, including Indiana, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, that effectively ban the use of this definition. Congress banned the use of this definition in the 2004 version of the IDEA,鈥� Murphy said. 鈥淲hen you define dyslexia as relational between intelligence and reading ability, … many students with dyslexia 鈥� are judged to have lower intelligence levels. They don’t get services because you essentially have to show that there is a substantial difference between your reading ability and your assessed level of intelligence.鈥�

Murphy recommended to 鈥渃onvene a national conversation on this issue of the definition,鈥� and for the federal government 鈥渢o provide a higher level of technical assistance to states as they seek to get services out to people with disabilities,鈥� before the bill ultimately passed 12-10.

More than 40 states now mandate evidence-based reading instruction in public schools. The specifics in these new laws and regulations vary 鈥� most require that schools use high-quality curriculum based on the Science of Reading, many invest in new teacher training, and some ban discredited methods. But they all have one thing in common: a focus on the early grades. 

In my nonprofit鈥檚 work supporting districts to implement new curriculum and instruction, we鈥檝e seen educators work tirelessly to shift classroom practice. We鈥檝e then seen them joyfully experience the positive impacts on teaching and learning. And we鈥檝e been hearing a consistent question.

What about high school?

Time and again, school and district leaders would pose the same questions about grades 9-12 that we were exploring in K-8. They wanted guidance about what high-quality English curriculum should look like. They were looking for materials that would nurture literacy for older students, especially those who struggled with grade-level texts. They were asking: How could they identify well-designed materials that truly support strong English instruction in high school, especially as it relates to building knowledge through rigorous, content-rich texts?

At the same time, we were hearing from publishers. Some were expanding their programs for younger students to include high school English, while others were interested in strengthening existing materials. Several were just getting started developing something new. No matter where they were on this journey, publishers wanted thoughtful, evidence-based criteria and feedback to ensure their materials reflected the strongest research and instructional design principles. 

They weren’t simply looking for a rating 鈥� they wanted guidance that would help them build evidence-based curriculum that met the needs of high school teachers and students. 

These many questions converged. It became clear that there was an opportunity to create a shared framework that could support both sides of the equation: helping publishers develop stronger curriculum, while helping districts make more informed adoption decisions. That inspired the Knowledge Matters .

We had past experience to draw on: In 2023, we created a review framework for evidence-based, knowledge-building ELA in . We built on that foundation while bringing together additional experts with deep experience in high school English, to ensure the criteria reflected the unique demands of academic expectations and classroom instruction in grades 9-12. 

That yielded a set of about two dozen criteria across eight domains, starting with a curriculum鈥檚 alignment to the science of reading. A strong curriculum uses evidence-based practices that accelerate student literacy, such as building vocabulary and knowledge through reading a substantial and coherent volume of texts. That helps students grapple with challenging texts, including through communal close reads that build students鈥� stamina, confidence and ability to ensure that what they read makes sense. It also engages students with content-rich topics drawn from history, science, the arts and literature, because a rich knowledge base is what makes complex texts comprehensible and literary analysis meaningful. 

Our tool identifies the features of a curriculum that foster this growth, including activities that systematically develop academic and domain-specific vocabulary; guidance for educators to engage students in productive and sustained academic discussions; explicit instruction in writing and frequent writing opportunities anchored in texts; targeted supports to grant equitable access to grade-level content; and predictable, effective instructional routines and teacher-facing materials to inform professional learning.

We then field-tested the tool by reviewing Novel HS ELA, a knowledge-rich, novel-based 9-12 program published by , The curriculum was designed to foster engagement with rich literature while also developing the knowledge, analytical skills and reading experiences that prepare teenagers for success in college, careers and civic life. Working through the review process helped us refine the tool while providing meaningful feedback to support the development of the materials. It also provided insights into how hard many publishers are working to put strong curriculum into the hands of great teachers. 

Ultimately, our goal is pretty simple: help more educators gain access to the strongest possible instructional materials. We believe that better curriculum sets the foundation for strong teaching, and that clearer guidance helps both curriculum developers and school systems move the field forward. 

When educators have a common language of excellence, both teaching and learning thrive. Our hope is that this tool supports high school educators to develop a shared understanding of what high-quality literacy instruction looks like and where instructional time is best spent. The tool isn’t just a way to evaluate materials 鈥� it’s an opportunity to identify and inspire the rigorous, engaging, effective English curriculum and instruction that all high school students deserve.

Even more impressively, low-income third graders at Indian River schools scored better than the statewide average for all students. And, perhaps not surprisingly, when we went looking for high-poverty schools that were nevertheless getting good outcomes in reading, we identified three of the district’s schools 鈥� Rosewood Magnet, Fellsmere Elementary and Pelican Island Elementary 鈥� for our 鈥�Bright Spots鈥� list. Fellsmere in particular stood out: Based on its 99% poverty rate, our calculations predicted that it would have a third grade reading rate of just 29%. But its actual rate was much higher, at 53%.

Indian River County was never exactly a failing district, but a decade ago it was performing a bit worse than the state as a whole. It has since begun to pull away, especially in third grade. Coming out of the pandemic, 60% of district third graders scored proficient in reading in 2023. That figure rose to 63% in 2024 and then jumped again, to 69%, in 2025.

The district鈥檚 gains are also widespread. Last year, 100% of Indian River County’s elementary schools earned an A or B rating, with no Cs, Ds or F. In comparison, nearly 1 in 3 elementary schools earned a C or below statewide. As a whole, the district has now earned an A grade from the state for three consecutive years.

So how is Indian River County getting these results?

A 10-part video series produced by the tells what happened. It makes a compelling case that these results are attributable to a distinctive public-private partnership between the district and a nonprofit called The Learning Alliance. The story starts with two moms, Liz Woody-Remington and Barbara Hammond, whose children were struggling to read. In 2010, they asked themselves: What would it take to get 90% of the district’s children reading on grade level by the end of third grade?

In 2012, then-Superintendent Fran Adams bought into the goal and had the district鈥檚 school board officially it. And the moms’ informal advocacy work has morphed into , a nonprofit with $5.8 million in last year. Today, that money provides funding for 25 literacy coaches, free afterschool and summer and a to help parents prepare their children for kindergarten.

The district鈥檚 literacy work is grounded in what鈥檚 known as . Originally by researchers Philip Gough and William Tunmer, this theory suggests that, to read well, children must know how to decode letters into sounds and have enough background knowledge to recognize what those words mean. The district’s afterschool program, for example, employs this method. Funded by The Learning Alliance, it gives students who need extra help with literacy explicit instruction on the letters or sounds they鈥檙e learning during the school day. It also uses stories, art and music as a way to build vocabulary and connect and engage the students.

During the school day, teachers take a similar approach using the curriculum from Amplify. They also receive extensive coaching and regular feedback on their classroom practice. In the videos, district leaders, principals and the local union leader all spoke about the value of that coaching. Mar鈥檚ha Roberts, a teacher at Vero Beach Elementary, noted that, 鈥淏eing under such high expectations, it was a little rough at first. But they helped me to see what I was good at and gave me great feedback, and that really built my confidence.鈥�

The district鈥檚 reading scores really seemed to take off after David Moore was hired as superintendent in 2019. In 2024, he was named the Florida Superintendent of the Year, and he plays a prominent role in the video series, speaking eloquently about the importance of providing teachers with coaching and support and relentlessly using data to drive instruction.

But perhaps most relevant here, Moore understood the importance of the early grades as a  long-term investment. He saw the need to make sure young students never get behind and bemoans the fact that, because state accountability systems typically start with third grade, principals tend to assign their best teachers to those . When principals neglect the earlier grades in this way, Moore cautions, 鈥測ou鈥檙e playing catch-up the entire experience of that child.鈥�

Despite the recent gains mentioned above, Indian River County has not yet reached its ultimate goal of having 90% of students reading proficiently by third grade. That is an ambitious target, but Hammond says she believes in the importance of having that shared goal across the community. Toward the end of the video series, she notes that, 鈥淪uperintendents come and go. School boards come and go. Without the community understanding this and holding the goal, the reform won鈥檛 last.鈥� 

What can the state do? One step might be to continue expanding its charter school sector, especially the brick-and-mortar schools serving predominantly Black and Hispanic students.

Oklahoma鈥檚 declining NAEP scores represent a sample of students across both traditional and charter schools, but Oklahoma has been fortunate to have a relatively successful charter sector. For example, using data through 2019, a Harvard found that Oklahoma had the sixth-highest-performing charter sector in the country.

A from the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board allows for a deeper, more up-to-date analysis. The biggest takeaways focus on size, performance and cost.

Both brick-and-mortar and virtual charters have grown in Oklahoma, collectively increasing from about 51,000 students in the 2022-23 school year to 55,000 last year. In the 2024-25 school year, 35,831 students attended a virtual charter and 19,190 were enrolled in brick-and-mortar charter schools. All told, charters serve about 8% of all public school students in the state.

A of student performance found 31 of 49 brick-and-mortar charter schools outperformed their neighboring traditional schools last year. For example, students at Stanley Hupfield Academy and John W. Rex Charter Elementary School outperformed the Oklahoma City average by 21 and 20 percentage points, respectively. The Dove and Santa Fe charter networks each had several standout schools, including Dove Science Academy, where students outscored nearby traditional schools by 34 points and which we named a Bright Spot for its third grade reading proficiency.听The largest outperformance was notched by a standalone charter called Deborah Brown elementary school in Tulsa, where students scored 59 points higher than peers in the neighboring district.听

As for virtual charters, the analysis found that only one 鈥� the Oklahoma Connection Academy High School 鈥� outperformed the statewide average, while 15 did not.

Note: Brick-and-mortar charter schools are compared to the traditional public schools in their physical districts. Virtual charters are compared to all traditional schools in the state.

A new from Adam Tyner at the University of Oklahoma made similar comparisons for high schools. At that level, students attending brick-and-mortar charters had slightly lower ACT scores than peers attending traditional public schools, but they had higher graduation rates 鈥� especially the low-income students. Meanwhile, the virtual charters had significantly worse outcomes. 

Notably, Oklahoma鈥檚 charters are getting these results with significantly less money. According to the state charter board, traditional public schools received $10,643 per student in state and local funding last year, compared with $9,684 for brick-and-mortar charters. This disparity of almost $1,000 per student has widened over time and is largely due to the fact that charters do not have the same access to money for facilities and do not receive the same share of local revenues that traditional district schools do.

Closing this funding disparity would likely boost outcomes for charter students even further.

While it is impossible to know for sure whether Oklahoma鈥檚 charter schools are getting their results by cherry-picking the best students, or even whether the rise of charters may have contributed to stagnation on the part of traditional public schools, suggests that’s not the case. If anything, traditional schools tend to get higher scores when they face increased competition in the form of charter schools.

For instance, Tulane University researchers Feng Chen and Doug Harris found that the effects from this type of competition tend to materialize when charter schools a 10% market share in a given district. The new charter found that Oklahoma now has six communities where charters have surpassed this threshold, led by Oklahoma City at 23%.

When I spoke with Rebecca Wilkinson and Shelly Hickman from the Oklahoma Charter Schools Board, they said they wanted to create an annual report that was comparative and meaningful, and to dispel myths about what charters are and are not. They are optimistic about increasing market share in more communities, and they hope that success can generate even more momentum across the state. 

A of four urban districts confirms these research-based early literacy pedagogies are indeed widely implemented in these school systems. Educators are doing many things right: They are consistently delivering explicit phonics instruction that includes a clear purpose using high-quality foundational skills curricula.听

Across the four districts, between 88% and 94% of over 200 surveyed teachers reported using their foundational skills curriculum daily or almost daily. Classroom observations of 112 foundational skills lessons confirmed that instruction was focused, aligned, and explicit鈥攈allmarks of effective early literacy teaching.

But something critical was often absent from those same lessons: the opportunity to

connect sounds and words to meaning. In a previous report, we explored how meaning is often missing in the tasks that upper elementary students are assigned 鈥� for instance, finding literal and nonliteral language in a reading passage but not what the author was trying to convey. In our latest publication, we look specifically at the foundational reading skills taught in the earlier grades.

Moreover, we found that many students meet literacy benchmarks for foundational skills on early literacy screening assessments. But by third grade 鈥� when they are expected to make meaning from more complex texts on state literacy assessments 鈥� far fewer demonstrate proficiency. 

In other words, early success with word reading does not always translate into later success with comprehension. 

This mirrors national trends: relying on early literacy assessments indicates that 56% of K鈥�2 students nationally are 鈥渙n track鈥� for learning to read, but only 31% of fourth graders performed at or above the proficient level on the 2024 NAEP reading assessment, a test that requires students to comprehend with greater depth.

What we found in our research, which included hours of classroom observation, was that only about one in five lessons gave students the chance to apply their phonics knowledge beyond single words to connected text: sentences, passages or stories that build reading fluency. And in more than half of lessons, teachers addressed word meaning just once or not at all.

In other words, students are learning how to blend sounds together to read words but not consistently how to make sense of them. We鈥檝e made real progress on decoding, but the connections between decoding and meaning are often missing.

That stems, in part, from how early literacy instruction is structured and supported. Decoding and language comprehension are often taught in distinct lessons with different curricula, and teachers receive separate professional learning for each.

While this structure can support focused instruction, it can also give the false impression that meaning making does not belong in phonics lessons. At the same time, K鈥�2 literacy data systems 鈥� including screeners and progress monitoring 鈥� tend to emphasize phonemic awareness and phonics, reinforcing the idea that those are the outcomes that matter.

The findings from this study point to an area for growth in foundational skills instruction that may help: bridging processes. These processes are the mechanisms that connect word recognition and language comprehension and should be incorporated into word recognition or phonics instruction, supporting students to build more meaning as they learn to decode. Two key bridging processes are vocabulary knowledge, which is understanding the meanings of words, and reading fluency or the ability to read connected text accurately and smoothly.

Without these bridging processes, decoding single words can be devoid of meaning.

Students may be able to sound out words yet still struggle to understand what they read. Importantly, bridging processes must be built into phonics instruction early on, and students should work on them throughout their early years of schooling, not just after they have successfully learned to decode words.

The encouraging news is that incorporating bridging processes does not require an overhaul of instruction or instructional systems. In many cases, bridging processes can be embedded into existing lessons in small but powerful ways.

Consider a phonics lesson on the two common sounds for double o, as in mood and look. A teacher might briefly define a target word 鈥� such as, 鈥渁 brook is a small stream鈥� 鈥� and show a picture of a brook before students practice reading it. Then she might instruct students to turn to a partner and share a sentence with the word brook.

This can take less than a minute but can anchor decoding in meaning, which is important for all students, especially for emergent multilingual students to expand their vocabulary as they are learning English. 

Similarly, building fluency doesn鈥檛 require a pivot away from explicit phonics instruction.

It requires ensuring that students regularly read sentences, passages and texts that incorporate the phonics patterns they are learning.听

For example, after decoding a list of words like book, cook, hood, soon, tool, and boot, students might read a simple sentence like, 鈥淲e went to fish in the brook,鈥� applying their phonics knowledge to connected text. Then they might read a short story about animals at a brook with several other double o words.

Our study found that such opportunities to build fluency were surprisingly rare and did not meaningfully increase from kindergarten through second grade. 

This is a missed opportunity. 

Stories and passages that use targeted phonics skills are often provided in early literacy curricula but are sometimes skipped due to pacing or a lack of understanding their importance. 

Fluency develops through practice with connected text; without it, students struggle to transition from decoding single words to understanding longer texts.

Bridging processes are critical for students to connect word recognition and language comprehension. Adequately addressing them requires more than individual teacher effort. District leaders must clearly assert that these processes are fundamental to foundational skills instruction and reflect this priority in curricula, professional learning and classroom observation tools.

District and school leaders should expand the data they use to capture a broader view of reading development, aligning tools with bridging processes and incorporating information beyond word recognition.

School leaders and instructional coaches should provide professional learning opportunities around bridging processes, leveraging existing structures like professional learning communities to teach educators how to embed vocabulary and fluency practice into phonics lessons without sacrificing instructional focus. 

This can be done through watching exemplar videos, conducting peer observations, lesson rehearsal and engaging in coaching conversations.

The promise of early literacy reform has always been that strong foundations would lead to strong readers. But developing students鈥� decoding skills alone is not enough.

If we continue to teach decoding and language comprehension as separate endeavors, the result will be the same: early gains that fade when students are asked to read and comprehend longer texts. But if we build the bridges through vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency practice and intentional meaning making in phonics instruction, we can change that trajectory.

SRI Education and 蜜桃影视 both receive financial support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

That, more or less, is the key to translating the science of reading into classroom practice, according to a new book by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs and Erica Woolway called . The authors work together at , an organization built on Lemov鈥檚 bestselling by the same name.

The new volume is meant to be a practical guide for classroom teachers. It offers concrete tips and embedded QR codes that take readers to videos of teachers putting those strategies into practice.

The authors are attempting to tackle a big problem: how to boost students鈥� knowledge. They cite suggesting that books 鈥� even children鈥檚 books 鈥� use more uncommon words than come up in most adults’ conversations.  In practice, that means, 鈥渕ost of the words a student learns in their lifetime will be learned via encountering them in their reading.鈥� The more kids read, and the wider variety of books they are exposed to, the better off they鈥檒l be.  

When people hear the 鈥渟cience of reading,鈥� they might (mistakenly) equate it with phonics, but the authors spend little time on those core foundational skills. In fact, they take systematic phonics instruction in grades K-3 as the assumed starting point for literacy instruction and note that their book is about 鈥渢he science of reading beyond phonics (emphasis theirs).鈥�

This is an important shift. In , students have made impressive gains on early reading skills, thanks in part to widespread changes in state policy pushing for new curriculum and early screening  assessments. Meanwhile, fourth and eighth grade reading scores continue to decline, and 12th grade reading comprehension recently fell to all-time lows.  

Lemov, Driggs and Woolway suggest this is partly an assessment problem. If students can鈥檛 answer a question about a reading passage, that may be due to many potential problems. It might be because they didn鈥檛 understand the question 鈥� or they lacked key background knowledge embedded in the text 鈥� or they didn鈥檛 understand the vocabulary words 鈥� or the passage used an unfamiliar syntax that the student couldn鈥檛 follow.

While daunting, this multitude of potential reading challenges also helps provide a roadmap for improvements.

Lemov, Driggs and Woolway start with a critical foundation: attention. They note that, 鈥淵ou can only learn about what you are paying attention to. Attention is always a prerequisite to learning.鈥� But reading and books are losing the war for kids鈥� time and attention. That鈥檚 partly why the authors support a 鈥渉igh text, low tech鈥� approach to limiting distractions in schools, and why Lemov was of school cellphone bans.

So how can teachers get kids immersed in reading? It鈥檚 not as simple as putting good books in front of students, because if they can鈥檛 read the words on the page quickly and easily, they will struggle to comprehend and make meaning out of the text. The authors cite that found, 鈥渞eading fluency predicted all school marks in all literacy-based subjects, with reading rapidity being the most important predictor.鈥�

In response, the authors suggest that, 鈥淭he best way by far to improve fluency is to provide students opportunities to hear, read and reread text aloud.鈥� They cite the strong research evidence behind the practice of , which has positive impacts even for high school students.

Lemov, Driggs and Woolway devote a full chapter to how educators can put this research into practice, including teacher and student read-alouds, along with carefully constructed and monitored independent student reading time. For instance, a teacher helping children learn how to pronounce a new word during a read-aloud might say: 鈥淭hat word is pejorative. Try that: pejorative. Good. Pejorative means expressing disapproval.鈥� This type of repetition can help students store the new word in long-term memory. In scientific terms, this process is called 鈥渙rthographic mapping鈥� and it鈥檚 a key component of how readers train their brains to connect words with their meaning.

Writing can also help students develop into strong readers, particularly when it鈥檚 tied to what they are already learning. But not just any writing; students need to be explicitly taught how to structure sentences, use precise vocabulary and write with style and panache. Drawing on concepts from , the authors suggest that teachers deploy 鈥溾�� exercises to help students extend their initial responses to explain why something is happening, any complicating factors and the final outcome.

Recently, there鈥檚 been a lot of in the literacy world about whether students should be taught to read using whole books or if it鈥檚 fine to mix books and excerpts or other short passages. On one side, researcher Tim Shanahan there鈥檚 no evidence that whole books are superior to excerpts at building reading ability or do more to build student reading stamina. He also notes that excerpts allow for greater breadth than a single book that may offer more in depth.

Lemov, Driggs and Woolway are unapologetic advocates for Team Book. They approvingly cite dyslexia researcher about how digital technologies are reshaping our brains, and how deep reading can counter those effects. They point out that stories help readers remember things better than just a series of disjointed facts and figures. And, channeling , they value the collective culture capital that students can access when they have read Shakespeare鈥檚 plays or George Orwell鈥檚 dystopian novels.

Regardless of which side of this argument you find more persuasive, Lemov, Driggs and Woolway have done teachers a service by providing numerous tips and examples of how to put the science of reading into practice in their classrooms. 

My own state, Arkansas, is preparing to implement a key piece of its 2024 , which is modeled after legislation in Mississippi. This summer will be the first in Arkansas when third-graders will be retained if they are not reading proficiently. As expected, parents and educators are on edge and questions abound. The prospect of thousands of students being held back is generating lots of attention and anxiety. 

But as Arkansas moves to implement its version of the Mississippi law and other states look to emulate it, policymakers would be wise to consider what the research says about retention. In short, like everything else in education, there is no panacea for increasing student learning. Retention in and of itself is not going to singlehandedly raise literacy rates. The key to success in Mississippi was the supports the state provided before and after students were retained. 

惭颈蝉蝉颈蝉蝉颈辫辫颈鈥檚 , passed in 2013, was a comprehensive K-3 reform law designed to ensure that all third graders read on grade level. Core elements included intensive professional development aligned with the science of reading, early identification of struggling readers, targeted intervention beginning well before grade three, deployment of state-funded literacy coaches and the retention of a small share of third graders who did not meet the reading benchmark.

As science of reading reforms expand nationwide and districts work to address pandemic-related learning losses, third-grade retention policies have become more common. As of 2024, have laws requiring promotion based on reading proficiency, and 13 additional states allow districts to retain students for this reason. Importantly, these laws typically are more generous in allowing exemptions than previous versions.

But while exemptions are often well-intentioned, suggests that, when broadly used, they can undermine policy effectiveness. Exemptions tend to reduce participation among the students who may benefit most from intensive intervention, including English learners who could benefit from extra help. The primary benefit of promotion-linked literacy policies is early detection paired with substantial supports, such as additional instruction, tutoring and coaching, before students reach third grade. So when exemptions are granted, they must be coupled with the same level of structured intervention Mississippi requires through individualized reading plans and intensive instruction.

Evidence from Mississippi helps clarify why retention alone is not the driver of literacy gains. In the first year of implementation, roughly 15% of the state’s third graders who scored below the promotion cutoff in the 2014-15 school year were retained, and among students just below the threshold, were held back. Yet fourth-grade scores began improving almost immediately, from 2013 to 2024, making Mississippi those children for reading and math gains during that time 鈥� well before retention could plausibly affect outcomes at scale. This timing strongly suggests that the gains were driven primarily by early identification, targeted intervention and intensive instructional support rather than by retention itself.

Importantly, Mississippi paired promotion decisions 鈥� whether retention or exemption 鈥� with structured, mandatory resources. Even students promoted via exemptions were required to have individualized reading plans, summer literacy programs and ongoing intervention. Survey and administrative evidence suggest that these promoted-but-still-supported students made meaningful reading gains, underscoring that the policy鈥檚 effectiveness hinged on the , not simply on whether students were retained.

Evidence from other states reinforces this point. In Florida, where third-grade retention has been studied extensively, outperformed exempted peers who did not two years later. This suggests that exemptions, when not paired with intensive intervention, can dilute policy effectiveness by allowing struggling readers to advance.

Survey evidence suggests that in part by the supplemental assistance provided to low-achieving students who were promoted via exemptions. By contrast, evidence from Florida shows that in reading two years later, indicating that exemptions were not consistently granted to those who would benefit most from promotion.

As Arkansas moves toward implementation, it would do well to consider not just 惭颈蝉蝉颈蝉蝉颈辫辫颈鈥檚 experience, but also Indiana鈥檚, which saw the rubber meet on the road on retention more recently. students are repeating third grade after failing the state test or qualifying for an exemption. State leaders had expected to retain more, but passing rates on the reading assessment jumped nearly 5 points last school year, to just over 87%. Officials said the progress stemmed in part from the expansion of a statewide program, the Indiana Literacy Cadre, that focuses educators鈥� attention on research-based instructional methods. Participation increased from 41 schools in 2022 to more than 550 in 2025, and schools in the Literacy Cadre saw a 7-point increase in passing rates, compared with gains of 3.6 points at other schools. 

Arkansas can hope for similar outcomes of this year鈥檚 state tests. There is cause for optimism 鈥� when it comes to not just retention but the resources that come before these critical decisions, is more expansive and students have access to more assistance both at school and home (through a $1,500 grant to families for literacy tutoring). Secretary Jacob Oliva, who leads the state Department of Education released in January to ensure families are aware of their students鈥� standing and students are receiving ample supports both before and after the testing window.听

Across studies, the evidence is consistent: retention mandates alone do not drive literacy gains in isolation. only when retention is part of a that intervenes early and intensively. 惭颈蝉蝉颈蝉蝉颈辫辫颈鈥檚 experience demonstrates that it is the comprehensive series of interventions鈥斅� 鈥� that produces lasting improvement.

鈥淭he kids know exactly what to expect, and they’re so much more confident when they come to a word that they don’t know, or a big word in text, because they’ve been taught all of those little, tiny skills that they need, and the concepts of how words are made up,鈥� Hoard said, who teaches at Emma L. Smith Elementary. 鈥淚t’s not like a guessing game for them anymore.鈥�

A small mid-Michigan district of 1,075 students, Stockbridge is among the first districts in the state to fully embrace training its teachers and building a curriculum that is supported by the science of reading, a body of research explaining how children develop reading and writing skills. This instruction relies heavily on phonics in the early years of schooling before building other essential skills like fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and the syntax of grammar and sentence structure in the later elementary grades.

After the district鈥檚 teachers and literacy coaches on how to implement the curriculum, they built a new foundation to teaching literacy that helped third-grade students increase English proficiency by 12% on standardized tests.

Now in its second year of structured literacy strategies, including daily small group and one-on-one literacy interventions and games that are scored with data tracked in real time, Stockbridge Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Amy Hodgson said the new approach has worked so well, the district has implemented a similar teaching method in math through daily, classwide interventions. 

Building those skills in the younger grades will help them have success across subjects as they get older, she said.

鈥淚f students don’t have fluency and automaticity in math or reading, it’s very difficult for them to have the cognitive load to access the higher skills that are being demanded of them in life and in standardized testing and in all these other places,鈥� Hodgson said. 鈥淚f I’m asked to do calculus, or if I’m asked to read a complex text, and I’m still sounding out words, there’s an exhaustion that comes with that.鈥�

A shifting focus to phonics

The school district is part of a recent nationwide shift back toward phonics-focused curricula and rather than a balanced literacy approach that incorporates a 鈥渨hole language鈥� method focused on meaning and context of words.

While the two approaches should be seen in some respects as complementary and integrated, Harvard Professor of Cognition and Education Catherine Snow said they are typically pitted against each other, with schools choosing to change approaches when a new 鈥渓iteracy crisis鈥� emerges.

鈥淚t’s kind of a pendulum shift every 15 or 20 years that you get some report saying our kids can’t read, and whatever is the dominant procedure at the time gets suppressed in favor of the other one, but in both cases, they go too far with it,鈥� said Snow, an expert on language and literacy development in children.

鈥淵ou can’t just do code-focused instruction, because you will drive the kids crazy and you will teach them that reading is about pronouncing words correctly, not about meaning. You can’t just do whole language instruction, because many kids need a little bit of help getting into the system. They need someone to explain to them very systematically.鈥�

Along with 39 other states across the country, Michigan has embraced the science of reading, a buzz term that is neither a program nor an instructional approach, said Kim St. Martin, director of the Michigan Multi-Tiered System of Supports Technical Assistance Center and consultant to the Michigan Department of Education. Instead, it is a body of research schools can choose to build their curriculum, training and assessments around, she said.

In 2024, Michigan passed a pair of K-12 literacy laws aligned with this research in an effort to boost third-grade reading scores and better identify and support students with dyslexia. In addition to aligning its curricula and assessments with lists approved by the state鈥檚 Department of Education, notes that instruction must not include methods or curricula that emphasize memorizing words or prompt students to guess unknown words using pictures.

Commonly used within whole language and balanced literacy programs, this 鈥渢hree-cueing鈥� system model relies on word meaning and sentence context; as such, it does not serve students well in learning the foundations of reading and writing, St. Martin said.

“If I’m a second-grader, when I’m reading the words, there’s nothing wrong with me having pictures in text for the purpose of me getting a visual representation in my mind of understanding what it is that this text is about,” St. Martin said. “What is inappropriate is if I’m using the picture to try to decode the word, because that would prevent me from understanding how to put together the letter-sound combinations to read that word.

鈥淯nfortunately, there have been strategies that have been taught for several years that frankly, are causing kids to guess and to use those types of three-cueing strategies.鈥�

Michigan has committed toward creating a committee that will vet curricula aligned with the science of reading and allow schools to purchase materials approved by the committee. The state also provided $34 million to train elementary teachers on how to teach the curricula via Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), with more than 5,000 teachers and literacy coaches completing the training to date.

The laws and funding efforts are concentrated on providing teachers with the tools they need to teach all aspects of reading to young learners, Michigan Department of Education Literacy Unit Manager DeNesha Rawls-Smith said.

鈥淲e believe that it is foundational for students that are learning to read to decode unknown words,鈥� Rawls-Smith said. 鈥淏ut again, we don’t believe that phonics, or word recognition in and of itself, makes a good reader. We believe that a good reader has the ability to recognize unknown words, and they have a knowledge about language. So together with word recognition and language comprehension, you have a reader that can read and understand what they’re reading.鈥�

How a child learns best

After studying years of student achievement data, Stockbridge K-6 Literacy Coach Cindy Stacy learned the school was doing the same thing and getting the same results that were 鈥渘ot amazing.鈥�

The district used state grant funds to invest in the , an approach initially developed to support students with dyslexia which has proven successful with other students as well. It worked with Institute for Multi-Sensory Education instructors to train its teachers and literacy coaches.

鈥淧rior to this latest shift, most elementary education programs focused on balanced literacy,鈥� Stacy said. 鈥淭here was a small piece of phonics. There was a whole language approach. There were leveled readers. With the science of reading, the whole paradigm just shifted.鈥�

While laying the initial groundwork was difficult, Stacy said mornings at Smith Elementary are now more intentional and bustling, with students reaching for their 鈥淥G bags鈥� that allow them to trace letters into their own sand trays. 

In Michelle Hedding鈥檚 kindergarten class, students are asked what sound letters make before tracing the letter in the sand tray. Different three-letter combinations are broken down by individual letters on a TV monitor, with Hedding asking students to pronounce the word before ultimately asking them if they鈥檙e 鈥渞eal or nonsense鈥� words.

In grades K-5, students receive at least 90 minutes of reading and 20 minutes of writing instruction per day, Stacy said, with several who need more individual support pulled into small group or one-on-one intervention periods for 25-30 minutes. In grades 3 to 5, there is more focus on language and reading comprehension, vocabulary, background knowledge and verbal reasoning.

During intervention periods, literacy interventionist Amy Taylor will drill down on concepts like the sounds that different blends of letters make and how a 鈥渕agic鈥� e at the end of a word like face or home makes the preceding vowel in the word 鈥渟ay its name.鈥�

Taylor, who has been with the district for 20 years, said the transition was difficult due to the belief from some teachers and staff that the use of sight words, or commonly used words children can memorize from sight, was an effective way to teach all students.

鈥淢y kindergarten class at the time, they were learning how to read — but the difference was, they didn’t know why,鈥� Taylor said. 鈥淚t was all memorization. They did not peel a word apart and talk about the different whys: why the word is 鈥榩inch.鈥� So, when we started the [new curricula], that was life changing for our learners and for us.鈥� It’s just changed our whole way of looking at a child and how they learn best.鈥�