ATLANTA – Georgia is gearing up to implement a new approach to teaching reading in the early grades.
Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed into law two literacy bills passed during this year’s legislative session.
About 36% of Georgia third graders read below grade level, according to the state’s 2022 Milestones test results, and around 17% of the state’s adults lack basic literacy skills.
The new laws aim at improving those numbers by introducing two related approaches to literacy instruction: “the science of reading” and “structured literacy.”
“Science of reading is sort of a relatively new term that bundles together … the role and necessity of systematic instruction on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency as well as comprehension and vocabulary,” said Sarah Woulfin, an associate professor at the College of Education at the University of Texas-Austin.
“It’s become a kind of streamlined way to talk about evidence-based reading instruction in an effort to change reading instruction in one particular direction.”
“Structured literacy,” as defined by one of the new literacy laws, refers to an “evidence-based approach to teaching oral and written language … characterized by explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic instruction.”
The new law names six specific topics of focus: phonology, sound-symbol association, syllable instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
“The idea is giving guardrails and a strategic mindset to how literacy instruction is delivered,” said Matt Smith, director of policy and research at the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (GPEE).
“We’re talking about making reading instruction in the early grades more systematic. … There’s a process. You screen and identify the students that have reading deficits.”
Many of these…
Read the full article here