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DES MOINES — Iowa elementary school teachers would be required to teach literacy using the techniques commonly known as the “science of reading” under legislation being advanced by Iowa lawmakers.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, in her annual Condition of the State address last month, said Iowa needs to increase reading outcomes for elementary students.
Last year, the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress reported 34 percent of third-graders were not yet proficient in reading and language/writing skills — with 56 percent qualifying as proficient and 10 percent as advanced.
Multiple studies have shown that students who are not able to read by third grade face much greater challenges in future academic success and beyond.
“We all know that unlocking a child’s potential begins with reading,” McKenzie Snow, director of the Iowa Department of Education, told lawmakers last week.
Reynolds’ bill, House Study Bill 650, would require Iowa colleges and universities to train teachers in a “science of reading” evidence-based literacy program.
Iowa teacher licensure candidates in early childhood, elementary, K-12 reading and literacy preparation as well as special education programs would have to pass the Foundations of Reading assessment to graduate. The state would also invest $3.1 million for current teachers to take and pass the same test within the next three years, by July 1, 2027.
Iowa is the only state in the nation that does not require teachers to pass a reading instruction competency test to earn an education degree or license.
Separate legislation — Senate Study Bill 3069 — also would prohibit teaching students to infer meaning based on semantics, syntax and visual cues, often called the “three-cueing” method.
The reading instruction required under the bill would include emphasis on phonics, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
Jillian Carlson, a lobbyist for the Board of Regents that governs the state’s public universities, said the science of reading concepts are taught to prospective teachers at the three universities.
She said she has concerns about prohibiting the “three-cueing” method of literacy education that may be beneficial for some students, like those learning English as a second language.
Literacy experts and parents of students with reading struggles and dyslexia, though, said the “three-cueing” method of instruction reinforces bad reading habits and teaches kids to mask their reading struggles rather than learn reading fundamentals. They said the state should prioritize methods that are evidence-based and proven to improve comprehension.
Cedar Rapids an early adopter of literacy technique
Iowa has invested $9.2 million to provide science of reading training to 5,000 elementary teachers and 1,000 administrators in public school districts, in addition to 500 K-5 teachers and 100 administrators at accredited private schools, across the state through a partnership with Massachusetts-based Lexia Learning.
As of Jan. 29, a total of 1,899 teachers and 328 administrators have registered for or begun training, which the state is providing at no cost to eligible K-5 educators and administrators through the use of federal COVID-19 relief funds.
The professional learning has transformed literacy instruction in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, said Holly Reeder, an instructional coach and certified LETRS trainer at Hiawatha Elementary School.
The district began training special education teachers in the science of reading in 2015 using Lexia’s LETRS, which focuses on the fundamentals of reading and writing instruction — phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and written language.
The district has since expanded the training to all elementary and middle school teachers. Today, the training is provided to all general education teachers, with a focus on kindergarten, first and second grades.
“We saw an increase in both our state test scores and within our weekly progress monitoring,” Reeder said.
Students were given a reading fluency assessment of how many words they could read correctly per minute to compare their reading speed and accuracy to other students in their grade level.
After given the screening test, if students did not meet benchmarks, they were “given a battery of diagnostic” assessments to identify gaps in their reading performance and create tailored instruction.
Reynolds’ proposal would require the state to create personalized reading programs for students not proficient in reading by third grade and up to sixth grade. Parents would have the option to retain children in third grade if they are not reaching literacy standards.
Jessica Mooberry, a teacher leader coach with the Cedar Rapids Community School District, said the training has helped the district bridge a disconnect between decades of research and what’s put into practice — dispatching literacy coaches to help teachers implement improved literacy techniques, with the aim to catch problems early.
“Historically, teachers came (into the classroom) and trusted our (instructional) materials,” she said. “LETRS has helped us open our eyes and see what’s missing in those programs, what’s missing within our own instruction and being able to fill those gaps.”
Hundreds of aspiring teachers are graduating from educator prep programs each year unprepared to teach children how to read, Mooberry said, and often find themselves dependent on the information given in teachers’ manuals to learn about spoken and written language concepts and to generate strategies for teaching students to read.
“Most undergrad programs … in their teacher preparation programs are not teaching future teachers how to teach reading aligned with the science of reading,” she said.
That’s time and money the school district then needs to spend training teachers on literacy instruction.
Both Mooberry and Reeder said the LETRS training has led to improved instruction and outcomes for students.
School administrators across the state shared similar comments.
“The LETRS training has provided our teachers and administrators with increased knowledge needed to make informed instructional decisions based on skills needed for students to build reading and writing skills,” said TJ Schnecklof, superintendent of the Davenport Community School District.
Angela Hanson, director of school improvement for the Spencer Community School District, said LETRS training has provided teachers and administrators with deep learning into how the brain works and acquires reading.
“This has been eye opening to teachers as they unlearn and research, and work to teach and respond differently,” Hanson said in a statement provided to The Gazette.
What is the ‘science of reading’?
Nina Lorimer-Easley serves as the assistant director for education and outreach with the Iowa Reading Research Center at the University of Iowa.
Lorimer-Easley said the science of reading is not a fad, an ideology, or a political agenda.
“It’s not set in stone. It’s not a single curriculum that’s rolled out and everybody buys it and is locked to it for the next 30 years,” she said.
Rather it’s a vast body of scientific research about how we learn to read, who struggles with reading, why they struggle, what we can do about why people are struggling, and the best ways to teach reading.
She said the strategy, simplified, is focused on the principle that “word recognition times language comprehension equals reading comprehension.”
Meaning that teaching children how to recognize words and what those words mean — and how to figure out what new words mean — is the best way to build literacy skills.
Phonics — teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in the alphabet — is a “foundational piece” of the teaching strategy, but it is not the only component in the teaching method, Lorimer-Easley said.
“First, you have to be able to encode and decode words — sound it out, read sounds one at a time and blend it together into a word — and then once you can do that, use higher level language concepts to apply meaning” and develop a robust vocabulary, she said.
Many of these strategies are already a part of the state’s existing Early Literacy Implementation, she said.
However, there remains a “huge variance” in how reading is taught across the state, she said. Some use the science of reading, while others use a “balanced literacy approach,” which Lorimer-Easley said makes too many assumptions about students’ word recognition skills.
“We want to know for a fact that a kid has those strong word recognition skills,” she said. “We don’t want to just all of a sudden give them a book and look at a picture and have them guessing at what words are.
“… It’s not just read, read, read. That’s not the best way we learn,” Lorimer-Easley said. “Science tells us the best way to learn is to read it, to write it, to hear it.”
Bottom line, Lorimer-Easley said, is Iowa “needs to do better” in raising the level of literacy instruction in the state
“We were encouraged to hear the governor’s office urging the state of Iowa to align with evidence-based strategies,” she said.
What other states are using the ‘science of reading’ and what have been the outcomes?
Iowa is not the only state to look at changing its reading education requirements.
Over the past several years, more states have implemented mandates requiring schools to use evidence-based methods for teaching young students how to read, passing various measures related to literacy instruction, including teacher training, curriculum, and how students are identified for extra support.
States like Mississippi have seen large jumps in reading scores following a system overhaul to focus on “science of reading” strategies. The overhaul included tutoring, improved literacy training for teachers, and a retention policy for third-graders who don’t pass a state test. The change was credited for the state’s move from the second-lowest ranked state for fourth-grade reading scores in 2013, to 21st in 2022.
Louisiana and Alabama also saw gains in fourth-grade reading. The states have passed laws adopting similar reforms that emphasize phonics and early screenings for struggling kids.
The turnaround in the three states that have struggled for decades with poverty and dismal literacy rates has grabbed the attention of educators nationwide.
“The science of reading is trying to take all of the inequities out of it and making sure that every kiddo can be a strong reader at the foundational level,” Lorimer-Easley said.
What do educators, lawmakers think of the proposal?
Emily Piper, a lobbyist representing the Iowa Association of School Boards, said the group is supportive of efforts to strengthen literacy instruction and improve reading scores. Piper, though, said school officials oppose using a standardized test “to make an assumption about somebody’s ability to be a quality teacher.”
She and representatives for Iowa school administrators and the state’s public universities noted that is why lawmakers two years ago passed a law stating teachers no longer have to pass a professional exam in order to be licensed.
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the law in 2022 eliminating the Praxis requirement for new teachers, taken as part of an effort to address a teacher workforce shortage.
Only offered in English, many dual-language immersion programs across the state said it made recruiting teachers more difficult.
Like the Praxis requirement, Piper said requiring students to pass the Foundations of Reading assessment to graduate will serve as an impediment to people entering the teaching profession who otherwise would perform well in the classroom.
Margaret Buckton, representing the Urban Education Network and Rural School Advocates of Iowa, worried the state would lose veteran teachers who would opt to retire early rather than having to take and pass the test within three years.
Buckton said the testing requirement would be helpful for districts to identify teachers who need additional support, but opposes requiring it to hold a teaching license.
She urged lawmakers to “provide not just pressure on the testing side, but also the supports on improving instruction.”
Jillian Carlson, with the Iowa Board of Regents, said the Massachusetts-based assessment does not align with Iowa’s teaching standards. She also said the testing requirement would be an impediment to students seeking to graduate with an education degree, but who after completing student teaching their final semester decide they don’t intend to teach in the classroom.
Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Independence, voted to advance the governor’s bill out of subcommittee to the full House Education Committee, but said he has concerns about the testing requirement and losing veteran teachers.
Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City, declined to sign off on the bill in subcommittee. Steckman questioned whether the same goals of increasing reading scores could be achieved with smaller class sizes and increased investment in public education. She also had concerns with the testing requirement.
Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, chair of the House Education Committee, said “a lot of conversations” still need to be had over the governor’s proposal, and moved the bill forward “to continue the conversation.”
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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