Last July, a sweeping overhaul of reading education in Wisconsin was signed into law with support from lawmakers and educators around the state.
The law, Act 20, is aimed at improving low reading proficiency rates by requiring instruction to be grounded in āthe science of readingā ā a body of research about what works best for teaching children to read. Among other things, this model particularly emphasizes phonics.
Wisconsin is among dozens of other states that have passed similar legislation in recent years in attempt to improve student reading. Test scores from the 2022-23 school year show only about 40% of students in Wisconsin were proficient in English language arts.
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Having had months to understand and adjust to Act 20ās requirements, schools now are getting a grasp on exactly what it means for teachers and students. The law prohibits certain types of instruction, meaning some districts will have to update the curriculum they use to comply. Schools also will have to implement additional training for teachers and reading screener tests for students.
What is the science of reading?
The science of reading is not a specific curriculum or textbook that school districts are now required to buy.
Mariana Castro, research director for the Multilingual Learning Research Center at UW-Madison, described the science of reading as a body of research accumulated over decades about what works best for teaching children to read.
āI think one of the misconceptions sometimes when people hear āthe science of readingā, is they think itās a curriculum or itās a prescribed way of teaching or thereās prescribed timing,ā Castro said. āThe āscience of readingā itself cannot be adopted.ā
But in Wisconsin, districts now are required to provide early literacy instruction that is based on this research.
While the research stresses phonics, or an understanding of the relationship between letters and their corresponding sounds, it also focuses on fluency, vocabulary identification and text comprehension, according to the National Center for Improving Literacy.
How were children taught before?
The science of reading movement has been a shift away from an approach to reading instruction often called ābalanced literacy.ā
A 2019 national survey found that about 72% of American educators have reported using balanced literacy to teach reading. Among other skills and in addition to phonics, balanced literacy teaches students a method called āthree cueing.ā
With this method, students use context clues, grammar structures and word patterns to identify unknown words. The concern, however, is that children become too reliant on this model and miss out on learning to identify words and letters with phonics.
While there has been debate around the role phonics should play in reading instruction, Castro said all these methods are part of a āmenuā teachers use to teach reading.
āThe menu of things has always existed,ā she said. āItās just that people sometimes give privilege to some things and not others.ā
Still, at least once major American leader of the balanced literacy movement, Lucy Calkins, has rolled out changes to her reading curriculum under pressure from the science of reading movement.
And initial test scores from around the country show this science of reading model seems to be working.
Mississippi was one of the first states to pass a law related to āevidence-basedā reading instruction. More than 30 states, including Wisconsin, have followed suit, especially after 2019, when Mississippi became the only state in the nation to meaningfully improve its fourth-grade reading scores.
What does this mean for Act 20?
Wisconsinās reading law gets specific about what teachers can and canāt teach when it comes to reading.
All schools in Wisconsin are required to provide science-based early literacy instruction, which lawmaker defined as āinstruction that is systematic and explicitā and consists of phonics, building background knowledge, oral language development, vocabulary building, instruction in writing and in comprehension and reading fluency.
By the 2024-25 school year, the law says schools can no longer teach students in kindergarten through third grade to read with the three-cueing method.
Since ACT 20 was signed into law last summer, much of the work has taken place behind the scenes. The law called for the formation of an Early Literacy Council, a group of nine experts appointed by the Department of Public Instruction and lawmakers.
The Early Literacy Council was tasked with reviewing and selecting reading curricula for each year that meet the standards outlined in the state law. After back and forth between the council, DPI and lawmakers, the final list approved earlier this month by the Joint Committee on Finance includes four curricula.
Districts donāt have to switch to one of the four, but if they do, the state will reimburse the district for the cost of the materials, if the district bought the curriculum after Jan. 1 of this year. The list of curricula eligible for reimbursement will be updated each year, too.
Districts using a different curriculum can continue to do so, as long as itās based in the science of reading. DPI says if schools can answer āyesā to these two questions, then it does not violate the three cueing ban:
1) Does the curriculum, intervention or supplementary instructional resource follow a specific scope and sequence?
2) Does the curriculum, intervention or supplementary instructional resource require the learner to apply their knowledge of phonics to solve an unknown word?
The law also lays out additional requirements around teacher training and the creation of a Wisconsin Reading Center, and it calls for reading screeners to be administered to students in 4K through third grade. That screener will test phonemic awareness, letter sound knowledge, the alphabet and oral vocabulary, according to DPI.
What does this mean for school districts?
Even before ACT 20, many school districts were starting their own curriculum review processes.
Castro said districts typically adopt a new curriculum every five to seven years to keep up with the latest research and the changing academic standards set by the state. But Act 20 may have sped up that cycle for some districts, she said.
The Madison School District adopted EL Education in 2022, one of the four curricula that ended up on the stateās final list, which the school district estimated at the time to cost about $3.5 million for materials, including shipping. The Oregon School District also has been using EL Education since the beginning of the school year.
The McFarland School District started using a curriculum called Wonders last fall. McFarland schools said it meets the standards outlined in Wisconsinās reading law even though itās not one of the four approved by the state.
The Waunakee School District has been using an early literacy curriculum called Meaning Making since fall 2022. This curriculum also does not appear on the stateās short list but still meets ACT 20ās requirements, according to Amy Johnson, the districtās director of elementary curriculum and instruction.
Waunakee already is looking for a new elementary math curriculum. Johnson said the district will be focusing on that work, rather than pursuing another reading curriculum change.
āElementary teachers need to teach all of the core subjects, and we already had a math pilot in the works before Act 20 was announced,ā Johnson said. āItās not reasonable for elementary teachers to implement two brand new curricula at once.ā
Other districts are in the middle of the process of considering new curriculum to adopt. This process can take months and includes researching vendors, creating a review committee and getting feedback from teachers.
The Middleton-Cross Plains School Districtās review process started last fall. District spokesperson Shannon Valladolid said the review committee composed of classroom teachers, reading specialists, special education teachers, principals and district leaders has met 12 times to research best practices and to review materials. The district is aiming to select a new curriculum in April.
āMCPASD was committed to reviewing these materials prior to Act 20 as the district had recently updated its curriculum review cycle. Act 20 has accelerated the process of selecting literacy materials in many districts across the state, including ours,ā Valladolid wrote in an email to Wisconsin State Journal.
For districts like Middleton-Cross Plains, that leaves a quick turnaround to purchase a new curriculum and get it implemented before the start of the 2024-25 school year.
While curricula typically outline knowledge and skills that students are supposed to learn and lay out specific units for educators to teach, itās often up to teachers themselves to align it with state standards and to create lesson plans. Teachers also have to ensure there is cohesion across grade levels, schools and entire districts.
āIt does take a while to learn that new resource, unpack, learn the lessons and the standards, and really just understand everything in the new resource,ā Johnson said.
Could it work? Is it here to stay?
Castro said it will take three to five years for the data to show whether reading proficiency rates increase with an emphasis on the science of reading.
Tests scores for students in the Madison School District from the 2022-23 school year showed modest improvements from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they still lagged behind state averages.
About 37% of students scored proficient in English Language Arts on the Forward Exam administered annually to students in third through eighth grade.
Castro said itās also hard to say whether the science of reading will be the method for reading instruction that sticks. She said thereās still more research to be done about implementation, especially in smaller, more rural schools, and among students with disabilities and multilingual students.
āI think what we need to do is look at the science of reading and see what it says about teaching reading, for example, to students who are multilingual, how to teach reading to students who have different disabilities and be cautious and have a critical lens,ā Castro said. āBut I donāt believe at any point weāre going to say we donāt need to teach the alphabet or forget phonics. That has always been there and will always be there.ā
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a comment attributed toĀ Mariana Castro. Castro said districts typically adopt a new curriculum every five to seven years to keep up with the latest research and the changing academic standards set by the state.Ā