Hello Educators! Welcome back from the holidays. Now that you have re-established your rhythm, let’s share some news. As we mentioned in a couple of previous posts, 32 states have already passed laws to support evidence-based reading instruction. These are teaching practices that that are based on scientific evidence. What exactly does this mean?
It means that through combining decades-old (and new) findings from psychology, brain science, linguistics, and educational psychology, we can now say definitively how human beings learn to read. And guess what? Turns out, humans are NOT hard-wired for reading. For example, if a human infant is surrounded by speaking adults, the infant will learn to speak.
Not Hard-Wired for Reading
A simple way to illustrate the point goes like this: if you place a human baby in a room full of people talking, the child will start to imitate the noises. She will gurgle, coo, make cute noises—all because she is trying to begin talking also. She will learn to talk. Humans are hard-wired for speech.
But it doesn’t work that way for reading however. If you take that same child as a five or six-year-old and place her in a room full of books—even with adults who read to her—she will NOT automatically become a reader, because humans are NOT hard-wired for reading. Literacy requires the intervention of a teacher who knows how to teach reading.
Moreover, many scientific disciplines have developed appropriate pedagogy involving phonics, phonemic awareness, language development, decoding, encoding, and other systematically presented exercises. All of these teaching processes now have scientific evidence to back them up. We have proof that there is only one way to teach reading. And states are getting on the bandwagon passing laws to bring these methods into the classroom.
Is your state one of them? Let’s see…
| State | Teacher Prep | Certification or Renewal | PD or Coaching | Assessment | Materials | Instruction / Intervention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Georgia | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Kentucky | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Mississippi | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| N. Carolina | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tennessee | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Virginia | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Wisconsin | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Who’s Winning?
As you can see, the South is way ahead of the pack, excluding Florida, West Virginia, and South Carolina. Not also that neither Texas nor California are at the top of the list. And Wisconsin is the only Midwestern state in the lead.
What does this mean?
The chart shows that only 8 states have laws that require a full spectrum of teacher support to implement the Science of Reading. This includes pre-service teacher preparation, as well as help for teachers already in the classroom.
So 24 states—while they have passed laws to support evidence-based reading instruction—they have not established requirements in all areas where teachers will need support.
Do you see your state on this chart? Why not? It means that their new laws do not require changes in all areas. Watch this space for more information on those 24 states coming soon.
In the meantime, you can take courses to catch yourself up through The Reading League.
See their online academy here: https://www.thereadingleague.org/online-academy/
More information on the other 24 states to come soon. Filling the Knowledge Gap!
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