Georgia education officials want to provide literacy coaches to help train teachers to improve reading instruction, even as some prominent lawmakers say the state Department of Education isn’t doing enough to implement a literacy law passed last year.
Georgia’s effort to help children read better is one example of many nationwide as the “science of reading” shakes up teaching and learning. For example, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to retrain teachers and revamp what children learn there, proposing $10 million to support the effort.
Georgia is a relative latecomer to literacy reform, with legislators passing a law last year mandating that each district must retrain teachers by August 2025. The law is modeled on a decade-long Mississippi effort that saw that state sharply improve what had been bottom-tier reading scores. Mississippi modeled its effort on Florida.
NY GOV. HOCHUL PUSHES FOR READING EDUCATION OVERHAUL TO ADDRESS DECLINE IN TEST SCORES
A majority of Georgia’s young students are behind in reading. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress found 32% of fourth graders were proficient in reading, about the same as nationwide. State Superintendent Richard Woods prefers a different measure, which finds just more than 40% of third-grade students are ready. That number shows improvement later, with 60% of students ready by eighth grade.
In his budget proposed Thursday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp included $11.3 million for literacy efforts, including $6.2 million for literacy coaches and more than $5 million for a screening test to detect dyslexia and other problems as early as kindergarten. The money, recommended by Woods, would be the first significant state spending on the law.
Most experts now agree effective teaching should include detailed instruction on the building blocks of reading, including letter sounds and how to combine them into words. But Georgia’s 181 school districts have broad autonomy to chart their own course. Some…
Read the full article here
