As California pushes schools to adopt research-based approaches to teaching children how to read, often called the “science of reading,” some teachers and advocates for English learners have expressed concerns that techniques used to teach reading in English to native speakers may not work for students who are learning English as a second language.
But an in-depth look at the science behind how language is developed reveals an interesting parallel between the science of reading and second language learning. In fact, the science of reading can actually provide support when it comes to teaching students whose native language is not English.
The science of reading and the science of language learning both require an explicit and structured approach to literacy that can actually help answer the longstanding question of: How can I teach English academic skills to a student who has no English oral ones?
A key strength of the science of reading approach is its focus on the development on both language (speaking) and literacy (reading) within the same instructional space. Gone are the days of encouraging separate subject blocks within English language arts, where literacy and oral fluency are taught as separate entities. Science-based approaches encourage teaching language and literacy hand-in-hand, complementing and building off one another based on each child’s development and progression. This focus is effective for all students, but especially for English learners who must learn oral skills at the same time as they are learning academic ones. As they are sounding out the word, they are also learning what that word means.
The traditional separation of oral language and literacy skills in English leads to an increase of “scaffolding” support for native English speakers — and even more so for non-native English speakers. Already pressed for time, teachers often find themselves supporting needed oral skills within literacy instruction, only to turn around and add needed literacy skills within oral language instruction. By teaching the two skills separately, teachers end up taking more time for each skill that is developmentally intertwined with the other.
The science of reading approaches these skills as interwoven, giving equal importance to both oral language and literacy instruction within the same space. This immediately reduces the need for scaffolds and emphasizes looking at language and literacy through a lens of cognition and development, instead of repetition and memorization.
Teaching oral, comprehension and vocabulary skills alongside language structure and syntax is something that has been much-needed for teaching English learners. Take Marco, an English learner, for example. Marco might sound out the word “net” correctly and might recognize a sight word (a commonly used word such as “she,” “be” or “had”) when reading. But does he know what those words mean, or how to apply them in context? Is he even given the opportunity to find out? Too often, Marco has no idea. He simply gets a “high five” for decoding one word correctly and recognizing another with no comprehension because that was the skill focus for that lesson. Marco continues in his learning process, only learning certain skills in a limited sense and not a fully comprehensive and applicable one.
This not only limits Marco’s literacy skills in the other language, but his language proficiency skills as well. He misses out on the opportunity for comprehension, vocabulary expansion, and active skill application of the language being learned because of this compartmentalized approach.
Marco needs both the functional application and the comprehensive skills to be taught purposefully and in combination. He also needs this done within the same learning period while the concepts are still fresh and relatable.
It’s an important step forward that this combined approach of language and literacy is now encouraged in whole-group and small-group instructional settings through the science of reading.
Looking at reading and the science behind it from a cognitive standpoint can provide us with a more equitable approach to teaching because it is based on what constitutes — and makes sense functionally — in the brain’s processing of information, something that is universal. How vocabulary is developed, alongside its symbols and sounds in reading and writing, is simultaneously developed in all language and literacy learning.
The science of reading challenges teachers to look beyond the surface of the language spoken and more deeply into how it functions. On the surface, it is easy for teachers to fear they cannot help or support English learners if they do not speak the student’s language. However, by applying the science of reading’s explicit language and literacy approach, teachers will be reminded of how they themselves made meaning and developed English literacy. Yes, they spoke English, but they still had to learn the structure and written form and how to read English in the classroom, just as their English learner students will. A key difference is that the English learner may not have any pre-existing English oral skills, but these skills, now more than ever, are encouraged and can be taught as they are developed, alongside literacy instruction.
Simply applying the science of reading won’t provide all the solutions to the complexities of teaching English learners, but it can provide teachers with a purposeful starting point through its explicit focus on, and the equal importance given, to both language and literacy development.
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Rachel Hawthorne has a background in linguistics and taught for several years as a bilingual teacher for grades preK-5. She now works as an English learner product developer for Really Great Reading, a company that provides literacy instruction support to educators.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Research by Stanford University found that 75 of the lowest-performing California elementary schools that received funding from an out-of-court settlement made significant progress on third-grade state Smarter Balanced tests this year.
The results indicate that the $50 million the schools received for effective reading instruction in the primary grades carried over to third grade after two years of funding.
“The fact that we were able to budge third grade comprehension assessments with a grant that was focused on TK, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, with a light touch on third grade, is amazing,” said Margaret Goldberg, literacy coach at Nystrom Elementary in West Contra Costa Unified, one of the schools that received the Early Literacy Support Block Grants, or ELSBs.
The 75 schools had the lowest scores in the state in 2019 on the third-grade Smarter Balanced test. They received the money, averaging $1,144 per year for the 15,541 K-three students, under the settlement in the lawsuit, Ella T. v. the State of California, brought by the public interest law firm Public Counsel. It argued that the state violated the students’ constitutional right to an education by failing to teach them how to read adequately.
Eligible schools were chosen from various districts, including Los Angeles Unified, San Francisco Unified, West Contra Costa Unified and others. The funding promoted the literacy instruction known as the “science of reading,” which includes explicit phonics instruction in kindergarten and first grade, along with the development of vocabulary, oral language, comprehension and writing.
Schools had the flexibility to choose to fund literacy coaches and bilingual reading specialists, new curriculum and instructional materials, expanded access to libraries and literacy training for parents. Schools were encouraged to participate in professional development in the science of reading and seek guidance on their literacy plans from the Sacramento County Office of Education, which oversaw the grants.
Released Monday, the study concluded that the block grants “generated significant (and cost-effective) improvements in English language arts achievement in its first two years of implementation as well as smaller, spillover improvements in math achievement,” wroteresearchers Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and Sarah Novicoff, a Stanford doctoral candidate in educational policy.
Students in the funded schools were scoring at the bottom of the scale in 2019, and, despite significant progress, few had achieved reading at grade level in 2023. Dee and Novicoff credited the early education grant for increasing third graders’ achievement by 0.14 standard deviation, the equivalent of a 25% increase in a year of learning, compared with demographically similar students who did not receive the funding. Researchers also found a similar gain by comparing the scores of third graders in the schools with the grants with third-grade scores of fifth graders from the same schools who had not benefited from the funding.
The Smarter Balanced reports results in four performance bands: standard not met, standard nearly met, standard met and standard exceeded. The schools with the grants succeeded in raising scores by 6 percentage points from the lowest category to standard nearly met, significantly reducing the number of students requiring intensive help. Still, after two years of funding, only 13.5% of students are proficient in reading, having met or exceeded standard. That’s 3 percentage points higher than in 2018, and 1 percentage point above pre-pandemic 2019. Schools with similar students not receiving the grants remain below where they were before Covid, according to the research.
Dee and Novicoff were unable to analyze why some schools performed better than others, which could be useful in shaping the state’s policy on early literacy. Unlike some states with comprehensive literacy plans, California does not collect any assessment data that school districts collect from TK to second grade. And, under the rules that the state negotiated in the settlement, participating schools were not required to submit their assessment data to the California Department of Education; most voluntarily did in the second year, but many did not in the first year. It’s also unclear how many schools adhered to their literacy plans or focused on less effective or ineffective strategies for improvement.
Researchers used the only complete set of state-level data to which they had access — third-grade reading comprehension assessments. Those scores may have understated the progress in reading that many schools made on district assessments in the first and second grades.
Public Counsel filed the Ella T. v. the State of California lawsuit in 2017, and the settlement went into effect during the height of the pandemic.Dee said the early success of the program during Covid, amid teacher shortages and extremely high chronic absences, made the results even more striking.
The third graders who took the Smarter Balanced test in 2023 “were the hardest hit by the pandemic. They were in kindergarten when it was interrupted by Covid,” Goldberg said. “They attended first grade remotely. In second grade, in schools like mine, which chose to adopt new curriculum, their teachers had never taught the curriculum before.”
Dee noted the academic gains from the grant were relatively large compared with the cost, making the program quite cost-effective — an effect size that is 13 times higher than general, untargeted spending.
Goldberg said the grant was efficient “because early intervention is cheaper and it’s more effective than waiting until third grade or later grades to provide reading support.”
The grant funding ends in June 2024. Dee said whether schools can sustain improved scores without specific funding support is an open question. Novicoff mentioned that the grant schools may be able to continue receiving support for literacy coaches and reading specialists if they receive funding from the new Literacy Coach and Reading Specialist Grant program.
Instead of being based on performance, the literacy coach grants are awarded to schools with high unduplicated pupil percentages, or the number of students who are eligible for free or reduced meals, are English language learners or are foster youth. Schools eligible for an early literacy grant may also qualify for a literacy coach grant.
Dee said design and implementation are key if the state hopes to continue or scale this success. This means paying close attention to school-based literacy action plans, oversight and resources with some flexibility. “This is a story about how schools that get money tend to do better — money does matter in schools, and this is another piece of evidence into that bucket,” Novicoff said, “but it also shows that what we can do with the money and how you structure that funding really does matter.”
Eva Levenson, now a sophomore at Berkeley High School, has struggled with dyslexia since childhood but private phonics-based intervention made a difference. “I don’t understand what’s in the way of making a shift when, both in other states and locally, districts are able to help kids now,” she recently told the school board. “How is it possible we aren’t doing it in Berkeley right now?”
Credit: Ximena Natera / Berkeleyside / CatchLight
This story is a collaboration between EdSource and Berkeleyside, a nonprofit online newsroom covering the city of Berkeley. EdSource Reporter John Fensterwald contributed to this report.
How kids are taught to read in Berkeley is slowly starting to shift.
Teachers are studying the science of reading. More students are learning phonics, sounding out words by letters and syllables. And the school district is screening every student to flag those who may have dyslexia, a learning disorder that causes difficulty with reading, writing and spelling.
But these changes didn’t come easily. They are the result of a federal class-action lawsuit, filed in 2017, by four families of Berkeley students with dyslexia who claimed the district failed to teach them how to read.
And though the suit settled in 2021, the district’s method of teaching reading, a balanced literacy curriculum developed by Columbia University Teachers College professor Lucy Calkins called Units of Study, remains in place.
Rather than teaching students to sound out letters, the curriculum relies on a method called three-cueing — where students use context clues like pictures to figure out words — that has now been discredited and banned in several states. Some Berkeley teachers still use cueing, while others have dropped the practice.
Now, the wheels are just beginning to turn in a district long devoted to Calkins. Advocates hope that aligning with the science of reading will help close one of the largest achievement gaps in the country — last year, 26% of Black students in Berkeley schools met state standards in reading, compared with 83% of white students.
“Historically, Berkeley has been — and is — widely known for being a balanced literacy district,” Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel said during a November panel discussion referring to the Calkins teaching method.
Enikia Ford Morthel, Berkeley schools superintendent, right.Credit: Kelly Sullivan / Berkeleyside
“What we want to be known for is being a district that is disrupting the narrative, disrupting persistent trends and data and really responding to our students,” she said. “This is not just another initiative. This truly is an imperative.”
Some students and parents aren’t yet convinced. Without a firm commitment to adopt a curriculum rooted in the science of reading, they are skeptical that they will see all the changes they believe are long overdue.
“At some point, you have to take responsibility,” said Rebecca Levenson, a parent of two children with dyslexia. Levenson wasn’t part of the lawsuit against the district, but she believes “it’s important for parents who see their children suffer to use their voice and power to make a difference for other families that are in that same situation.”
The Berkeley lawsuit was the second filed in California in 2017 over literacy instruction. In the other suit, the public-interest law firm Public Counsel charged on behalf of students in the lowest-performing schools that California had failed to meet their constitutional right to read. Under a $50 million settlement in 2020, 75 schools received funding and assistance to improve reading instruction. They were encouraged, but not mandated, to select instruction based on the science of reading.
While a district review of its elementary school literacy curriculum found that Units of Study failed to teach foundational literacy skills like phonics and vocabulary, Ford Morthel has stopped short of calling on the district to drop Lucy Calkins. The district is now beginning the process of adopting a new curriculum for the fall of 2025.
At a recent school board meeting, George Ellis, the court-appointed monitor, hammered home the importance of changing the Calkins curriculum. Without a “sound, comprehensive” core curriculum, he said, “it doesn’t matter what interventions we’re really providing, because we’re just filling up holes all over the place, and we’re never going to get caught up here.”
Attorneys and advocates hope the Berkeley lawsuit will spur other school districts to act faster to avoid legal action, accelerating the adoption of the science of reading in California and across the country. But Berkeley’s experience also demonstrates just how many barriers stand in the way of changing reading instruction.
Berkeley’s reading guru
When Lucy Calkins developed her approach in the 1990s, the balanced literacy teaching method was heralded as a new philosophy of education. Rather than teaching from rigid phonics textbooks, teachers introduced students to an entire library of independent books with the goal of teaching kids to love reading.
Calkins was the “guru of reading for people in Berkeley,” said Maggie Riddle, a former teacher and principal at Berkeley’s Jefferson Elementary, now called Ruth Acty. Once Calkins’ approach came to Berkeley, phonics came to be seen as a rote, old-school way of teaching, “dumbing down” instruction. “Berkeley was anti-phonics. One hundred percent,” Riddle said.
Berkeley wasn’t alone in this. Balanced literacy once enjoyed nearly universal popularity. “It was being used in every single Bay Area district,” said Deborah Jacobson, a special education attorney who brought the suit, a federal class action, against the Berkeley district seven years ago.
Special education attorney Deborah Jacobson, photographed at home on this month, brought up the federal class action lawsuit against the Berkeley school district in 2017. Credit: Ximena Natera / Berkeleyside / CatchLight
But the approach has fallen under fire amid a national reckoning over reading instruction, with a consensus growing that balanced literacy goes against what we know about how the brain works when learning to read.
This understanding anchors the science of reading, an approach backed by decades of exhaustive scientific research that suggests most children need systematic lessons in phonics, or how to sound out words, as well as other fundamentals, such as building knowledge and vocabulary, to learn to read. Teaching foundational reading skills especially benefits English learners. Advocates say reading is a civil right and phonics helps bring social justice to Black students.
More than half of states have passed laws requiring schools to align with research-based methods or favoring phonics. In September, Columbia University cut ties with the Reading and Writing Project that Calkins led for decades, citing the need to seek out new perspectives. Calkins herself has revised her curriculum to incorporate more explicit instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness.
A decade ago, California adopted a framework for K-12 literacy that encouraged districts to use evidence-based reading instruction, now commonly called the science of reading. But it wasn’t required, and the state didn’t push districts to adopt it.
Still, advocates say these changes don’t go far enough. The California Early Literacy Coalition plans to sponsor legislation that would create a comprehensive state literacy plan, mandating training in the science of reading for all teachers, not just new ones, and requiring the use of textbooks rooted in the approach.
In Berkeley, lawsuit cast a light
When Berkeley Unified was sued in 2017, Riddle said she saw it as an opportunity. She had moved up through the ranks to become head of K-8 schools and led legal negotiations for the district for two years. “Nobody ever wants the district to be sued, but it cast a light on the needs of kids in reading, especially kids with dyslexia,” Riddle said.
Not everyone saw it that way. It took five years to reach a settlement agreement, and the district’s core curriculum was a sticking point in negotiations. “The resistance was serious, but the lawsuit was serious, too,” recalled Riddle. During negotiations, the district implemented Fast Track Phonics to get phonics instruction into classrooms, but advocates criticized the decision as putting a Band-Aid on a broken system, leaving the core Calkins curriculum intact.
Berkeley signed the settlement agreement in 2021, but due to the pandemic, didn’t start working on implementation until the following year, extending the three-year plan until 2025. Initially, Ellis, the court monitor, criticized the school district and its board for failing to embrace the settlement. And in February, Jacobson said the district had breached the settlement agreement by moving too slowly, but decided not to file a notice in court after district leaders promised action.
In the last year and a half, the district has started taking steps toward the science of reading.
Elementary teachers did a book study of “Shifting the Balance,” an introduction to science of reading practices. The district implemented a universal screening system to flag students who might have dyslexia and started training literacy coaches to implement phonics-based intervention programs like Orton-Gillingham and Heggerty. The district also established a new department of curriculum and instruction, hired a districtwide literacy specialist, and began developing a multi-tiered system of support for struggling readers.
The district’s new focus has made a huge difference for some teachers, even those with decades of experience.
Angélica Pérez, a reading specialist at Thousand Oaks Elementary, said though she has known about phonics for years and even taught it, only recently has she received the systematic training she needed to implement it well with struggling readers.
In my 26 years in education and 15 years in the classroom, I wasn’t so aware of the importance of phonemic awareness.
Angélica Pérez, a reading specialist at Thousand Oaks Elementary in Berkeley.
The changes have won over some of the district’s critics, including Jacobson. “There is a new sense of urgency with the new administration and a new level of commitment,” Jacobson said. “Every year the light bulb seems to go on, more and more.”
Angélica Pérez’s reading room at Thousand Oaks Elementary School allows children to explore leisure reading. A longtime reading specialist, Pérez uses a phonics and phonemics curriculum to help struggling students. Credit: Ximena Natera / Berkeleyside / CatchLight
They have also earned the praise of the teachers union president. “There is a systematic plan to make sure our teachers are getting what they need so they can do their jobs best,” said Matt Meyer, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers.
Cost to students of the lengthy legal fight
For families whose children struggle with reading, Berkeley’s decades-long commitment to balanced literacy came at a price. Many students with dyslexia have either missed out on learning, or their parents have paid thousands of dollars in private tutoring to catch them up.
“After a certain point, the research shows that it becomes unrecoverable,” said Eliza Noh, a Berkeley parent who has a child with dyslexia. “The early years for teaching people how to read are critical.”
Levenson’s two children, Eva Levenson and Wen Dolphin, both have dyslexia and attended Berkeley schools 18 years apart. But Eva received private reading intervention, while Wen did not. The family says their experience shows the difference phonics-based intervention can make.
Rebecca Levenson and her youngest daughter,Eva, talk in their West Berkeley home. Levenson’s two children, Eva and Wen, who is in his late 20s and lives in Colorado, have struggled with dyslexia throughout their academic careers. Credit: Ximena Natera / Berkeleyside / CatchLight
Dolphin dropped out of school at 15, while Eva, now a sophomore at Berkeley High, is taking the same challenging classes as her peers. She began writing for The Jacket, Berkeley High’s student newspaper, and in October, penned an article about the Calkins curriculum.
“I know that my life trajectory could have been very different if I would have had the support that I needed in those really formative years,” Dolphin told a crowd at a Berkeley school board meeting last year.
When Lindsay Nofelt’s son was diagnosed with dyslexia, she shelled out thousands of dollars on a phonics-based intensive reading intervention program. Her son’s reading ability improved quickly, but what took Nofelt longer to piece together was Berkeley’s role in her son’s story.
Even after listening to Emily Hanford’s podcast “Sold a Story,” which thrust Calkins’ curriculum into the spotlight, she didn’t connect the literacy debate to Berkeley schools.
“I thought, if Emily Hanford is writing about this and sounds like it’s not serving the needs of the students, then there’s no way that Berkeley Unified school system would use such a discredited curriculum,” Nofelt said.
Students relax at lunchtime at Willard Middle School in Berkeley in August 2022. Credit: Ximena Natera / Berkeleyside/ CatchLight
But over time, Nofelt realized her son wasn’t the only one in Berkeley struggling with reading. As she learned more about the science of reading and the class-action lawsuit, she realized that the kind of reading instruction Hanford was describing in her podcast was happening in Berkeley. “When I found out they were one and the same, all of the pieces fell into place,” she said.
Two years ago, Nofelt formed Reading for Berkeley to educate parents about early literacy and give them resources to advocate for their children. It’s now a resource that Nofelt wishes she had when she was trying to help her son — digestible content designed to help families ask questions about their children’s literacy education and support their reading abilities.
Today, students with dyslexia and their parents are watching Berkeley closely, their hope resting on the district’s commitment to the science of reading.
At a recent school board meeting in January, Eva Levenson told the Berkeley school board directors and superintendent that she is still waiting to see a plan that addresses the failure of the district’s core curriculum.
“I don’t understand what’s in the way of making a shift when, both in other states and locally, districts are able to help kids now. How is it possible we aren’t doing it in Berkeley right now?”
On Feb. 8, the article was updated to clarify and elaborate on details of AB 2222.
A veteran legislator who taught elementary school for 16 years introduced comprehensive early-literacy legislation Wednesday that would impose requirements on reading instruction and add urgency to the state’s patchwork of reading reforms.
Evidence-based practices, collectively known as “the science of reading,” would become the mandated approach to reading instruction for TK-5, if Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, becomes law.
The bill would shift the state’s decade-old policy of encouraging districts to incorporate fundamental reading skills in the early grades, including phonics, to demanding that they do so. This would depart from the state policy of giving school districts discretion to choose curriculums and teaching methods that meet state academic standards.
By 2028, all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists would be required to take a 30-hour-minium course in reading instruction from an approved list.
School districts and charter schools purchasing textbooks would select from approved materials endorsed by the State Board of Education in a new round of textbook adoption.
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing would receive money to add several experts for accreditation of teacher preparation programs in the science of reading. The bill would strengthen accountability for those programs that have not taught effective reading strategies, as required under recent state law.
Rubio and the advocacy nonprofits EdVoice, Decoding Dyslexia CA, and Families in Schools, the bill’s co-sponsors, argue that another generation of California children cannot wait for districts teaching ineffective techniques using inadequate materials to come around.
“California is facing a literacy crisis,” the first sentence of the bill states. “There are far too many children who are not reading on grade level by the end of third grade and who will not complete elementary school with the literacy skills and language development they need to be successful academically in middle school and high school.”
Only 43% of California third graders met the academic standards in the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Hispanic students, and 35% of low-income children were proficient, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students.
“There’s always this delicate balance between local control versus let’s move forward collectively,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice and former candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “But when we have an issue that the vast majority of lower-income kids, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, are not reading at grade level, it requires urgency to do what we know works as fast as possible.”
Rubio, who recalled being handed coloring books instead of reading lessons in first grade as a non-English-speaking Mexican immigrant, said that data on the effectiveness of the science of reading convinced her to author the bill. However, her own experience as a fourth-grade teacher who previously taught kindergarten and first grade reinforced it.
“When I have fourth graders that are at first- or second-grade reading, something’s wrong. I can tell you right then and there, if a kid doesn’t know phonics in the fourth grade, we screwed them up somewhere. If they’re not reading in the third grade, they may never recover,” said Rubio, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2016.
A piecemeal approach to literacy changes
The science of reading refers to research from neurology, psychology, and the cognitive and developmental sciences about how children learn to read. In the last decade, 47 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws to incorporate elements of the science of reading strategies. Fewer — Mississippi, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Virginia among them — have adopted and funded policies that coordinate multiple key elements: preparing and training teachers, supplying them with aligned instructional materials, testing for learning difficulties like dyslexia and engaging parents.
California is among the 47 states. Within the past three years, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature enacted discrete pieces of a state policy.
They funded $40 million to the University of California San Francisco to create a screening test for the risk of dyslexia and other learning difficulties; universal screening of K-2 students will begin in 2025-26.
They included $500 million in the last two state budgets for hiring and training of literacy coaches in the 5% of schools with the most low-income students. The Sacramento and Napa county offices of education, strong advocates of the science of reading, are overseeing the effort. They passed legislation to create a teaching credential for PK-3 that includes new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; teacher preparation programs must introduce them starting next fall, and teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.
The Commission on Teacher Credentialing created a pre-kindergarten to grade 3 credential and passed new literacy standards grounded in the science of reading; those new standards will apply to the PK-3 credential as well as existing multiple subject, single subject, and education specialist teacher preparation programs. Teachers will take a performance assessment as part of their new credential.
At the encouragement of State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor emerita at the Stanford University School of Education, Newsom included $1 million in the current budget for a “literacy road map,” which will serve as a guide, with online resources, for districts to implement evidence-based reading strategies. Leading that effort are two respected literacy experts, Bonnie Garcia and Nancy Brynelson, whom State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond named the state’s first state literacy co-directors.
Tuck credits the steps taken by the Legislature and Newsom, “who has been an anchor on early education.” But guidelines won’t ensure that students in all districts will receive effective reading instruction —especially high-poverty schools that may be “slower to make adjustments when they’re dealing with so many challenges and so much complexity.”
Megan Potente, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, points to her 20 years as a teacher, who, as a new teacher frustrated by the ineffectiveness of her reading training, took a course on phonics and fundamental reading skills. “You feel like you’re not good at your job, and you weren’t equipped. And that’s a terrible feeling for new teachers,” she said. “So I went back to school, and I learned what I needed.”
Years later, she became a coach, supporting teachers in districts using balanced literacy that de-emphasizes evidence-based practices. She found it difficult to apply what she knew, she said, “because the curriculum materials didn’t follow the science; the teaching methods didn’t follow the science.”
A piecemeal approach to reading reforms inevitably leads to a game of “whack-a-mole,” former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who is credited with implementing successful comprehensive policies in her state during the pandemic, told EdSource.
Newsom did not require nor explicitly encourage districts to use the $20-plus billion they received in federal and state Covid-relief funding on teaching training in the science of reading nor on updating reading texts and materials. Now that the state is heading into a lean budget year, a scarcity of funding, particularly for teacher training, could set back a timeline to implement the bill. Newsom’s proposed budget for 2024-25 includes no significant money for new TK-12 programs.
A spokesperson for the Newsom administration, which usually declines to discuss pending legislation, offered no further comment.
What’s in Assembly Bill 2222
AB 2222 would define evidence-based literacy instruction as “evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and oral language development, fluency, comprehension, and writing … that adheres to the science of reading.” (Phonics are rules that relate letters in words to the sounds of spoken language. A phoneme is the smallest element of a sound within spoken language. Phonemic awareness reflects the ability to understand that words combine multiple phonemes when pronounced.)
The bill sets requirements for three principal elements of literacy instruction:
Teacher training
Starting in March 2026 and no later than June 30, 2028, all teachers in grades TK to 5 must complete an approved professional development and training program satisfactorily. The California Department of Education would appoint one or more county offices of education with expertise in the science of reading and evidence-based literacy instruction to serve as the state literacy expert lead that would select the list of eligible training programs. Districts would have to notify parents if fewer than 90% of the required teachers failed to complete the course.
Instructional materials
The last state textbook adoption for English language arts and English language development was 2015. The bill would require the State Board of Education to complete the next adoption cycle by Jan. 1, 2026, for TK through eighth grade. The materials would have to adhere to the science of reading. School districts would not be required to replace materials they’re currently using, but they would need a waiver to buy basic instructional materials that aren’t approved. A district whose waiver is denied for existing instructional materials that they are using will be required to adopt materials from the state-approved list. For the first time, all districts would have to report which textbooks they are using to the Department of Education.
Textbooks like “Units of Study,” by noted literacy author Lucy Calkins, whose instruction relies on visual cues, including the three-cuing method of reading, would not be eligible for the approved list.
Teacher preparation
The bill would strengthen the accountability requirements of landmark Senate Bill 488, the 2022 law that requires candidates for a PK-3, elementary, or multiple subject credential to receive evidence-based reading instruction.
It would require the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to establish a probationary accreditation process for teacher prep programs that aren’t meeting the literacy instruction requirements. Faculty in those programs would have to complete professional development in the science of reading for the program to avoid a loss of accreditation.
The bill would provide funding for the credentialing commission to hire experts in the science of reading to help with program accreditation. One of the dozen members of the Committee of Accreditation would have to be an expert in the science of reading.
Parents of young kids starting to learn to read in California should consider moving to Mississippi. No doubt, this advice is jarring. Decades ago, Southern families migrated to California in search of better opportunities. Mississippi’s child poverty rate today is nearly twice that of California.
Yet, when it comes to teaching children to read, Mississippi is a bright spot, one of three states whose gains in reading achievement put their schools ahead of where they were before the pandemic. California is one of ten states where reading scores continue to fall.
Data shown above from Stanford and Harvard universities’ Education Recovery Scorecard reveals the stark contrast. Mississippi’s students were below California’s in 2016, and half a year behind the national average in reading. Mississippi made steady progress until 2019, but both states suffered similar-sized learning losses during the pandemic.
Their paths to recovery have diverged sharply: Mississippi students now read above average while California students are worse off than those in 2016. A student in Jackson now reads a quarter of a school year ahead of a similar student in Sacramento. This is the result not of a short-term fix but from a decade of intensive focus on reading throughout the state.
California policymakers may be angered by the comparison, but they can’t ignore or dismiss the data. There are three things they could learn from Mississippi’s progress:
First, Mississippi’s leaders, from governors to district superintendents, have articulated a common mission to improve reading achievement. A decade ago, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant set a reading improvement goal for the state, in support of legislation passed by his predecessor. Then in 2015, he said, “If we confront dyslexia aggressively, we can see a dramatic decrease in our state’s dropout rate and help turn around our reading scores.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has dyslexia, has not mentioned reading once in his State of the State speeches, nor did his predecessor Jerry Brown. To be fair, Newsom has talked about reading in his budget remarks, and the state has approved a new screening tool for dyslexia, but leaders across California lack a common goal to improve reading.
Second, Mississippi has placed reading curriculum at the center of its reform efforts. Like California, Mississippi has an approved textbook list, with the difference being that the choices in Mississippi are all highly rated for alignment to college and career-ready standards by EdReports. One of those curricula, Wit and Wisdom, is also well-regarded for its knowledge-building features. Students read whole texts of fiction and non-fiction that showcase diverse perspectives and topics.
California last released a textbook adoption list in 2015. Districts aren’t required to pick from California’s current list, nor does the state keep track of which curricula are being used. The California Reading Coalition has carried out the most comprehensive review to date and finds that one of the more popular series used in California districts is poorly rated and negatively correlated with student achievement.
In the last nine years, publishers have created high-quality English language arts curricula that are well aligned with college-ready standards. Now, there are also well-regarded curricula such as Bookworms and EL Education, whose publisher has made them openly accessible to districts and schools. This helps districts save on costs and frees up resources to support teachers’ implementation.
Third, Mississippi has worked to strengthen the professional expertise of teachers.
Mississippi added literacy coaches in its 75 lowest-performing schools to help teachers learn how to implement new curriculum and offer feedback to improve instruction. California added the exact same number as part of the settlement in the civil rights lawsuit. Research from Stanford found the coaches had a positive effect on early reading achievement. But California’s coaches only reached 1% of schools. If the policy had operated at the same scale as Mississippi’s, the state would have added 800 coaches, not 75.
Historically, most university teacher preparation programs have had a high amount of autonomy, with tenured faculty highly resistant to change. Mississippi redesigned its teacher prep program requirements so universities must offer three common courses for all aspiring early literacy teachers. Last year, the National Council of Teacher Quality gave high ratings to two-thirds of Mississippi’s nine colleges training teachers, as their courses now address all five components of scientifically based reading instruction. In California, 60% of university programs scored an “F” for not addressing any of the five components.
California has taken some important steps on teaching quality. It has created a new PK-3 teaching credential based on new literacy standards and is developing a performance-based reading licensure test for new teachers. But a world of minimal oversight of teacher preparation programs, which are allowed to teach anything they want, fails to ensure all students have expert teachers.
Some policymakers and journalists dismiss Mississippi’s progress because the state has a third-grade promotion gate. Students have three attempts to pass the state test but are retained a year if they score below the state’s threshold. But those students don’t receive more of the same the next year. Instead, they are provided with an extra 90 minutes a day of intensive reading instruction, an individualized plan, and are guaranteed a high-quality teacher. A recent Boston University study found that students who repeated third grade scored higher on the state reading exams by sixth grade than fellow students who barely passed the third-grade test.
Assembly Bill 2222, recently proposed by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, would initiate important changes in how reading is taught in California. A new textbook cycle would adhere to research-based methods for teaching reading. All current teachers, specialists and literacy coaches would have nearly a week of training to bring them up to speed on the latest research-based teaching. Most importantly, the bill borrows ideas from Colorado — a state whose policies are also rated highly by the National Council on Teacher Quality — on how to strengthen accountability for teacher prep programs that have not taught effective reading strategies.
Some policymakers have expressed concern that the proposed legislation infringes on local control of schools. Look at where local control has gotten California: only 43% of third graders read proficiently, while other states taking a stronger role show dynamic growth. It’s worth remembering that the responsibility for ensuring educational equity and excellence resides not in the Covina Valley or Chula Vista school districts but in California’s state constitution and the plenary power of the Legislature.
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David Scarlett Wakelyn is a consultant at Upswing Labs, a nonprofit that works with school districts and charter schools to improve instruction. He previously was on the team at the National Governors Association that developed Common Core State Standards.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
First grade teacher Sandra Morales listens to a student read sentences aloud at Frank Sparkes Elementary School in Winton.
Credit: Zaidee Stavely / EdSource
Two prominent California advocacy organizations for English learners are firmly opposing a new state bill that would mandate that reading instruction be aligned with the “science of reading,” saying it could hurt students learning English as a second language.
Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, would require schools to teach children how to read using textbooks and teacher training grounded in research, which shows that children must learn what sounds letters make and how to sound out words, in addition to vocabulary and understanding, learning how to read fluently without halting, and how to write.
The bill also states that curriculum must adhere to research that “emphasizes the pivotal role of oral language and home language development” for students learning English as a second language. Research shows that English learners need to practice speaking and listening in English and learn more vocabulary to understand the words they are learning to sound out. Students also benefit from learning to read in their home language, and from teachers pointing out the similarities and differences between their home language and English — for example, how different consonants or vowels make the same or different sounds in each language.
But representatives from Californians Together and the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), which have both written letters opposing the bill, said they are concerned the bill could hurt English learners, who represent more than one-fourth of students in kindergarten through third grade.
They said they believe the bill would dismantle or weaken the state’s progress toward improving literacy instruction. Advocates pointed to the $1 million the state has put toward a “literacy road map” to guide districts to implement evidence-based reading strategies, and the new literacy standards passed by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, to prepare new teachers to teach reading based on research.
“AB 2222, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, in my opinion, is attempting to illegally dismantle what we currently have in place, that is evidence-based and has a comprehensive literacy approach,” said Edgar Lampkin, chief executive officer of CABE. “It’s trying to mandate a magic bullet that does not exist and attempts to be one-size-fits-all.”
The framework, which was adopted in 2014, encourages explicit instruction in foundational skills and oral language development instruction for English learners.
“The challenge is the professional development of our teachers to implement them, and the implementation is sporadic,” said Barbara Flores, professor emerita from CSU San Bernardino and past president of CABE. “We have districts that are doing a very good job. We have others that need help to do it, but they know they need help.”
Representatives from the two advocacy organizations opposing the bill also said it does not sufficiently spell out how to help students who are learning to read in more than one language.
“Biliteracy is nowhere,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together. “And what about students that are in dual-language immersion programs? What about translanguaging and bridging?” Translanguaging and bridging refer to the practices of helping students learn the differences and similarities between two languages and transferring knowledge they have in one language to another.
The bill’s sponsors and author say the progress the state has made is admirable, but more needs to be done, because only 43% of California third graders were reading and writing on grade level in 2023, based on the state’s standardized test. Among those classified as English learners, only 16% met the standards for reading and writing. Once students are reading and writing in English at grade level, they are usually reclassified as fluent, and 73% of third graders who were once English learners and are now fluent in English were reading and writing at grade level in 2023.
Assemblywoman Rubio said she made sure to include the needs of English learners, sometimes referred to as ELs, in the bill.
“As a former EL myself, I understand the complex challenges for these children and would only introduce bills that are grounded in research and data that points to positive outcomes for ELs,” she wrote in an email to EdSource.
“Specifically, AB 2222 requires an emphasis on the pivotal role of oral language and home language development, particularly for ELs, and instruction in English language development specifically designed for limited-English-proficient students to develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. As an educator, I know how critical it is that both current and pre-service teachers are trained and empowered to support ELs in the classroom.”
Rubio said she has spoken with representatives of Californians Together and the California Association for Bilingual Education about their concerns.
“I have offered for them to help me draft a piece of legislation moving forward which will help every child in California, especially our ELs. Thus far, they have refused, noting a philosophical difference,” Rubio said.
The organizations that sponsored the bill, Decoding Dyslexia California, EdVoice, and Families in Schools, said the bill does not dismantle, but rather strengthens and builds upon the new literacy standards and the ELA/ELD framework. In addition, they said the bill does not advocate for a “one-size-fits-all” approach to teaching reading and rather requires districts to focus on English learners’ needs and assets.
“While we acknowledge that there’s confusion out there, I think when you read the actual bill, it’s far from reversing course on the good policy and progress we’ve made recently. If anything, this bolsters and supports it,” said Lori DePole, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia California.
The concerns from English learner advocates about a push for “science of reading” curriculum are not new. But DePole said when crafting the bill, the sponsoring organizations looked to agreements hashed out in a joint statement by advocates for English learners, including Californians Together, and proponents of curriculum based on the “science of reading.”
Hernandez said Californians Together is not backtracking on those agreements.
“Because we oppose this bill does not mean that we are against the five components of literacy, which includes foundational skills,” said Hernandez. “Do teachers need professional learning? Absolutely. Do they need instructional materials that are based on a comprehensive research-based literacy approach? Yes.”
However, she said she is concerned about implementation. She pointed out that the joint statement also makes clear that sometimes schools implement practices under the name of the science of reading that do not align with the research, like focusing on phonics for an extended amount of time and leaving out other skills that students need, like English language development, practicing writing or reading stories aloud.
The sponsors said “any characterizations of AB 2222 being just about phonics are misleading and inaccurate.”
“It is important to clarify that the science of reading is a lot more than just phonics,” reads a statement from the three sponsoring organizations. “It includes explicit and systematic instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and oral language development, fluency, comprehension, and writing that can be differentiated to meet the needs and assets of all students, including ELs,” referring to English learners.
Particularly concerning to opponents of the bill is one particular phrase saying that curriculum based on the science of reading “does not rely on any model for teaching word reading based on meaning, structure and syntax, and visual cues, including a three-cueing approach.”
DePole said the language is there to ensure that teachers do not continue to use controversial methods such as “three-cueing,” which teaches students to use pictures and context to guess what a word is, rather than sounding it out.
But English learner advocates said students learning English need pictures to help them learn the meaning of words they are sounding out. In addition, they said the way the bill is written leaves too much open to interpretation and could end up discouraging teachers from teaching vocabulary and grammar.
“Any word that appears in a sentence or a collection of words or a stream of language has syntax. So if you’re not teaching syntax, or if you’re banning the teaching of syntax, you’re banning the teaching of vocabulary and grammar, right? So this provision contradicts everything that appears in the ELA/ELD framework,” said Jill Kerper Mora, associate professor emerita from the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University, and a member of CABE.
Hernandez said the problems with three-cueing should be addressed through training “so teachers understand the why,” rather than through a state mandate.
“We agree that we need a comprehensive approach, which includes foundational literacy skills,” Hernandez said. “But we just don’t think that this is the approach.”
Imagine a cross-country road trip using outdated maps. What are the chances you’ll take the best routes or even get to your destination?
This is what’s happening in California classrooms. Teachers receive outdated tools to teach reading; consequently far too few students become motivated, competent readers and writers.
Our most disadvantaged students pay the steepest price. Only 2 in 10 low-income Black students in third grade are at least on grade level in English language arts. The same is true for 3 in 10 low-income Latino students, 2 in 10 English learners, and 2 in 10 students with disabilities. Overall, only 4 in 10 California third graders read on grade level.
Many factors, in and out of school, influence reading achievement. Schools cannot affect what they cannot control. But they can control how reading is taught. AB 2222, introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, seeks to update how schools teach reading. It would require that instructional reading materials, teacher preparation reading courses, and in-service teacher professional development all adhere to reading research, which the bill refers to as the “science of reading.”
English learner advocacy organizations opposing AB 2222 — the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), Californians Together and, most recently, the Center for Equity for English Learners at Loyola Marymount University — have voiced extreme objections to the bill with no hint of attempting to find workable solutions.
Yet when Assemblymember Rubio, formerly an English learner and a teacher, called upon CABE and Californians Together to help draft legislation to serve every child in California, including English learners, the groups refused, citing a “philosophical difference.”
Philosophies aside, existing research could help teachers of English learners do a better job. Why would self-described advocates for these students walk away from developing solutions, choosing instead to deprive teachers and teacher educators of research knowledge to help students attain higher literacy levels? Whose interests are served? Certainly not students’.
Vague, misleading language and misinformation plague the field, most perniciously about the “science of reading.” The term is cited repeatedly in the bill but poorly defined.
Moreover, opponents of the bill are fond of labeling science of reading as one-size-fits-all, rigid, or a “magic pill.” It is none of these. Nor does it “isolate” phonics.
Anyone who knows anything about reading research over the past half-century knows these characterizations are simply wrong.
Many districts have indeed implemented poor practices such as excessive phonics instruction and insufficient attention to language, comprehension, vocabulary and knowledge development, all in the name of “science of reading.” This can’t be blamed on reading science. The culprit is misinformation, which opponents of the bill perpetuate.
I’ll try to clarify.
The science of reading — just as the science of anything — is a body of knowledge that informs how students develop reading skills and how we can most effectively teach reading (and writing) in different languages to monolingual or multilingual students. This science, based on decades of research from different disciplines and different student populations worldwide, shows that:
While a first language is typically acquired naturally by being around people who speak it, written language (literacy) must generally be taught, learned and practiced. This is true for a first, second or later language.
Literacy is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without foundational skills connecting the sounds of the language with the letters representing those sounds, what is typically called “phonics” or “decoding.”
The best way to help children acquire foundational literacy skills is through direct, explicit and systematic instruction to help them develop accurate and automatic word reading skills. The practice known as “three-cueing,” where students are taught to recognize words using some combination of “semantic,” “syntactic” and “grapho-phonic” cues, is far less effective for most students, including English learners: It’s insufficiently explicit about how the sounds of the language are represented in print.
Some students will require a great deal of explicit instruction; others will require much less. Instruction building on individual students’ strengths and addressing their needs is necessary.
As they develop these foundational skills, and throughout their schooling, students need instruction and other experiences to develop oral language, vocabulary, knowledge and other skills. Accurate and automatic foundational literacy skills merge with these other skills, leading to skilled fluent reading and comprehension, both of which must be supported and improved as students progress through school.
Although all this is true for students in general, some require additional considerations. For example, English learners in English-only programs (as most of these students are) must receive additional instruction in English language development, e.g., vocabulary, as they’re learning to read in English. English learners fortunate enough to be in long-term bilingual programs, continuing through middle and high school, can become speakers and readers of two languages — English and their home language.
Unfortunately, AB 2222 undermines its own cause by failing to articulate clearly what science of reading actually signifies. With some improvements, the bill could acknowledge what we know from research that is relevant to meeting the needs of English learners:
How to help English learners having difficulty with beginning and early reading get on track, either in Spanish or English;
How to help older English learners make better progress in their reading achievement by providing comprehensive advanced literacy instruction; and;
How long-term bilingual education can pay dividends in terms of bilingualism, biliteracy and generally enhanced English language achievement.
It is difficult to pack all this into a piece of legislation clearly and precisely. But try we must if we’re serious about improving reading achievement rather than winning the latest reading wars skirmish.
We should get past the squabbling, turf protection and unhelpful language and instead do the right thing for all students. AB 2222’s introduction is an important step forward on the road to universal literacy in California. We must get it on the right track and take it across the finish line.
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Claude Goldenberg is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and a former first grade and junior high teacher.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Teacher Jennifer Dare Sparks conducts a reading lesson at Ethel I. Baker Elementary School in Sacramento last year.
Credit: Randall Benton / EdSource
California’s largest teachers union has moved to put the brakes on legislation that mandates instruction, known as the “science of reading,” that spotlights phonics to teach children to read.
The move by the politically powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) puts the fate of Assembly Bill 2222 in question as supporters insist that there is room to negotiate changes that will bring opponents together.
CTA’s complaints include some recently voiced by some advocacy organizations for English learners and bilingual education that oppose the bill and have refused to negotiate any changes to make the bill more acceptable.
The teachers union put its opposition to AB 2222 in writing in a lengthy letter to Assembly Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi last week. The committee is expected to hear the bill, introduced in February, later this month.
The letter includes a checklist of complaints including that the proposed legislation would duplicate and potentially undermine current literacy initiatives, would not meet the needs of English learner students and cuts teachers out of the decision-making process, especially when it comes to curriculum.
“Educators are best equipped to make school and classroom decisions to ensure student success,” the letter said. “Limiting instructional approaches undermines teachers’ professional autonomy and may impede their effectiveness in the classroom.”
Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an advocacy nonprofit co-sponsoring the bill, said he was surprised that CTA would oppose legislation that would ensure all teachers are trained to use the latest brain research to teach children how to read.
“Unfortunately, a lot of folks in the field haven’t actually been trained on that, and a lot of the instruction materials in classrooms today don’t align with that,” Tuck said.
Tuck said CTA appears to misunderstand the body of evidence-based research known as the science of reading. It “is not a curriculum and is not a program or a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “It will give teachers a foundational understanding of how children learn to read. Teachers will still have a lot of room locally to decide which instructional moves to make on any given day for any given children. So, you’ll still have significant differentiation.”
A nationwide push
California’s push to adopt the science of reading approach to early literacy is in sync with 37 states and some cities, such as New York City, that have passed similar legislation.
States nationwide are rejecting balanced literacy as failing to effectively teach children how to read, since it trains children to use pictures to recognize words on sight, also known as three-cueing. The new method would teach children to decode words by sounding them out, a process known as phonics.
Although phonics, the ability to connect letters to sounds, has drawn the most attention, the science of reading focuses on four other pillars of literacy instruction: phonemic awareness, identifying distinct units of sounds; vocabulary; comprehension; and fluency. It is based on research on how the brain connects letters with sounds when learning to read.
Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would require that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour-minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education.
The legislation goes against the state policy of local control that gives school districts authority to select curriculum and teaching methods as long as they meet state academic standards. Currently, the state encourages, but does not mandate, districts to incorporate instruction in the science of reading in the early grades.
“It’s a big bill,” said Yolie Flores, president of Families in Schools, a co-sponsor. “We’re very proud that it’s a big bill because that means it is truly consequential in the best way possible for children. It’s not a sort of tweak around the edges kind though, it’s the kind of bill that really brings transformation. So we are hoping that the Legislature sees beyond the sort of typical pushback and resistance, and in the end, I think, teachers will see that this was a huge benefit for them.”
Seeking compromise
The bill’s author, Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, said she took CTA’s seven-page letter not as an outright rejection but as an opportunity for negotiations.
“I’m glad they sent this letter,” she said. “They outline their objections and the reasons why, and that’s something I can work with. It’s not a flat, ‘No, we don’t want you to do it.’ They gave me specific items that I can look at and have a conversation about.”
She said that Assemblymember Muratsuchi asked her to work with the CTA on a compromise. She is also meeting with consultants for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, “to look at the big picture,” she said.
But Flores says the state’s budget problems, with predictions of no money for new programs, may be a bigger hurdle to getting the bill passed than the CTA opposition. The cost of paying for the required professional development for teachers would total $200 million to $300 million, she said. Because it is a mandate, the state would be required to repay districts for the cost.
“That is a drop in the bucket for something so transformational, so consequential,” Flores said. “I hope that the Legislature really comes to that realization. We’re in a budget deficit, but our budget is a statement of priorities.”
Advocates say that it is imperative that California mandate instruction in the science of reading. In 2023, just 43% of California third graders met the academic standards on the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Latino students and 35% of low-income children were reading at grade level, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students.
“It’s foundational,” Flores said. “It’s not the only thing teachers need to know. It’s not the only thing that teachers will need to do and to adhere to, but it’s sort of the basic foundational knowledge of how children’s brains work in order to learn to read.”
The bill would sunset in 2028 when all teachers are required to have completed training. Beginning in July, all teacher preparation programs would be required to teach future educators to base literacy instruction on the science of reading.
Needs of English learners
The CTA and other critics of AB 2222 charge that it ignores the need of English learners for oral language skills, vocabulary and comparison between their home languages and English, which they need in order to learn how to read. Four out of 10 students in California start school as English learners.
Tuck disputes this. “We actually emphasize oral language development,” he said. “This would be the first statute that would say when instructional materials are adopted, and when teachers are trained in the science of reading, they must include a focus on English learners and oral language development.”
Representatives from Californians Together, an advocacy organization for English learners and bilingual education, applauded the CTA’s opposition to the bill. They oppose the bill, rather than suggest amendments, because they disagree with its overall approach.
“We just don’t think this is the right bill to address literacy needs,” said Executive Director Martha Hernandez. “It’s very restrictive. We know that mandates don’t work. It lacks a robust, comprehensive approach for multilingual learners.”
Instead, Californians Together and the California Association for Bilingual Education have both said they would prefer California fund the training of teachers and full implementation of the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework.
The framework was adopted in 2014 and encourages, but does not mandate, explicit instruction in foundational skills and oral language development for English learners.
The California Language Teachers Association has requested the bill be amended to include information about teaching literacy in languages not based on the English alphabet, such as Japanese, Chinese or Arabic, according to Executive Director Liz Matchett. However, the organization has not yet taken a position on the bill.
“I agree that we want to support all children to be able to read. If they can’t read, they can’t participate in education, which is the one way that is proven to change people’s circumstances,” said Matchett, who teaches Spanish at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. “There’s nothing to oppose about that. I’m still a classroom teacher, and all the time, you get kids in high school who can’t read.”
Education Trust-West urges changes in the bill to center the needs of “multilingual learners” — children who speak languages other than English at home — and to include more oversight and fewer mandates, such as those that may discourage new teachers from entering the profession.
“If our recommended amendments were to be accepted, EdTrust-West would support it as a much-needed solution to California’s acute literacy crisis.”
Claude Goldenberg, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, said “it was disappointing” to see CTA’s opposition, particularly because the union did not suggest amendments. He said he had met with representatives from CTA and urged them to identify what could be changed in the bill.
In a recent EdSource commentary, Goldenberg urged opponents to “do the right thing for all students. AB 2222’s introduction is an important step forward on the road to universal literacy in California. We must get it on the right track and take it across the finish line.”
Referring to the CTA’s opposition, Goldenberg said, “Obviously my urgings fell flat. They identified why they’re opposing, but there’s no indication of any possible re-evaluation.”
Goldenberg, who served on the National Literacy Panel, which synthesized research on literacy development among children who speak languages other than English, has called on the bill’s authors to amend it to include a more comprehensive definition of the “science of reading” and include more information about teaching students to read in English as a second language and in their home languages.
The CTA has changed its position on bills related to literacy instruction in the last two years. It had originally supported Senate Bill 488, which passed in 2022. The legislation requires a literacy performance assessment for teachers and oversight of literacy instruction in teacher preparation. The union is now in support of a bill that would do away with both.
The change of course was attributed to a survey of 1,300 CTA members, who said the assessment caused stress, took away time that could have been used to collaborate with mentors and for teaching, and did not prepare them to meet the needs of students, according to Leslie Littman, vice president of the union, in a prior interview.
Veteran political observer Dan Schnur said he’s not surprised CTA would oppose the bill since some of its political allies are against it; the question is how important CTA considers the bill.
“If it becomes a pitched battle, CTA will have to decide whether it is one of its highest priorities in this session,” he said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t indicated his position yet, but Schnur, the press secretary for former Gov. Pete Wilson, who teaches political communications at UC Berkeley and USC, said, “This is not the type of fight Newsom needs or wants right now. If he has strong feelings, it’s hard to see him going to war for or against.”
A bill that would have required California teachers to use the “science of reading,” which spotlights phonics, to teach children to read has died without a hearing.
Assembly Bill 2222, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, will not advance in the Legislature this year, according to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who described the state’s student reading and literacy rates as “a serious problem,” adding that the bill should receive a “methodical” review by all key groups before there is a “costly overhaul” of how reading is taught in California.
“I want the Legislature to study this problem closely, so we can be sure stakeholders are engaged and, most importantly, that all students benefit, especially our diverse learners,” Rivas said in a statement to EdSource, referring to English learners.
The bill, which had the support of the California State PTA, state NAACP and more than 50 other organizations, hit a snag two weeks ago, when the California Teachers Association — the state’s largest teachers union — sent a letter stating its opposition to the bill to Assembly Education Committee Chairman Al Muratsuchi.
The union claimed that the proposed legislation would duplicate and potentially undermine current literacy initiatives, would not meet the needs of English learner students and would cut teachers out of decisions, especially on curriculum.
Rubio, who could not be reached late Thursday, told EdSource last week that Muratsuchi asked her to work with the teachers union on a compromise.
Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an advocacy nonprofit co-sponsoring the bill, said he was surprised the bill didn’t get a hearing considering the importance of the issue.
“We understand it’s a tough budget year, but we also believe that the most important priority for the education budget is helping our kids learn how to read,” he said.
But he called the move to table the bill a “bump in the road.”
“When we launched with Assemblymember Rubio and the sponsors behind this, we knew it might be a multi-year effort,” he said. “So you get up tomorrow and keep it moving forward.”
Advocates say that it is imperative that California mandates this change in reading instruction. In 2023, just 43% of California third-graders met the academic standards on the state’s standardized test in 2023. Only 27.2% of Black students, 32% of Latino students and 35% of low-income children were reading at grade level, compared with 57.5% of white, 69% of Asian and 66% of non-low-income students.
“The California NAACP was right, this is a civil rights issue,” said Kareem Weaver, a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and co-founder of the literacy advocacy group FULCRUM. “And you don’t play politics with civil rights. The misinformation and ideological posturing on AB 2222 effectively leveraged the politics of fear. We have to do better, for kids’ sake, and can’t give up.”
What is the science of reading?
Science of reading refers to research-based teaching strategies that reflect how the brain learns how to read. While it includes phonics-based instruction that teaches children to decode words by sounding them out, it also includes four other pillars of literacy instruction: phonemic awareness, identifying distinct units of sounds; vocabulary; comprehension; and fluency. It is based on research on how the brain connects letters with sounds when learning to read.
The legislation would have gone against the state policy of local control that gives school districts authority to select curriculum and teaching methods as long as they meet state academic standards. Currently, the state encourages, but does not mandate, districts to incorporate instruction in the science of reading in the early grades.
Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour-minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education.
English learner advocates opposed bill
It appears lawmakers heard the pleas of advocates for English learners who opposed the bill.
“We know that addressing equity and literacy outcomes is a high priority for California and that our state is not yet where it needs to be with literacy outcomes for all students,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, one of the organizations that opposed the bill. “AB 2222 is not the prescription that is needed for our multilingual, diverse state.”
She said she is willing to work with lawmakers for a literacy plan that is based on reading research, but that “centrally addresses” the needs of English learners.
California’s proposed legislation to adopt the science of reading approach to early literacy would have been in sync with other states that have passed similar legislation. States nationwide are rejecting balanced literacy as failing to effectively teach children how to read, since it de-emphasizes explicit instruction in phonics and instead trains children to use pictures to identify words on sight, also known as three-cueing.
Muratsuchi had until the end of the day Thursday to put the bill on the calendar for the April 17 meeting of the Assembly Education Committee. It would then have had to be heard by the Assembly Higher Education Committee before the April 26 deadline for legislators to get bills with notable fiscal impacts to the Appropriations Committee. Now, the bill will have to be reintroduced next year to get a hearing.
“It’s really too bad. Lots of kids are not being well-served now. But on the other hand, I hope this will be an opportunity to regroup and present a more robust version of the bill,” said Claude Goldenberg, a Stanford University professor emeritus of education, who supported the bill.
Goldenberg said a future version of the bill should include a “more comprehensive definition” of the “science of reading” and should make clear that this includes research on teaching reading to all students, including English learners.
“English learners, for example, would benefit if teachers knew and used research that is part of the science of reading and applies whether they’re learning in their home language or in English. Same for children with limited literacy opportunities outside of school and children having difficulty learning to read,” Goldenberg said.
‘Backroom politics’
Lori DePole, co-state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, one of the supporters of the bill, expressed frustration Thursday evening over the decision to table it.
“It is shameful that when more than half of CA kids aren’t reading at grade level that our legislators are okay with the status quo, and they have killed this literacy legislation without even allowing it to be heard,” she said in a statement.
“… CA kids’ futures are too important to allow backroom politics to silence this issue. We will no longer accept lip service in addressing our literacy crisis. It is time for action, and we aren’t going away.”
Advocates for students with dyslexia support the phonics-based teaching methods as especially effective for children with the learning disability.
Muratsuchi said he supports the science of reading. “However, we need to make sure that we do this right, by serving the needs of all California students, including our English learners,” he said in a statement to EdSource. “California is the most language-diverse state in the country, and we need to develop a literacy instruction strategy that works for all of our students.
“I thank Speaker Robert Rivas for his decision to pursue a more deliberative process involving all education stakeholders before enacting a costly overhaul of how reading is taught statewide,” he said.
EdSource reporter Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.
CLARIFICATION: The article was revised on April 24 to clarify that the Committee on Accreditation, by law, has the power to accredit programs. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing responds to complaints about the committee’s decisions but does not hear appeals. As a new program, Mills College of Northeastern received a provisional accreditation; it can seek full accreditation in 2026.
Now, advocates are charging that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing and its oversight body, the Committee on Accreditation, have failed their first test to stand behind those new standards. Instead, after a one-hour hearing Friday, the commission backed the accreditation of Mills College at Northeastern, which critics argue is ignoring critical new standards.
More on the issue
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing agenda item on the accreditation complaint can be found here.
It includes a summary of the issue, the complaint, and the response from Mills College at Northeastern University. The nine written comments for and against the complaint can be found here.
The Literacy Standard and Teaching Performance Expectations for Preliminary Multiple Subject and Single Subject Credentials, adopted in October 2022, can be found here
This approval, say critics, will set a bad example for other programs facing a fall deadline to overhaul their literacy instruction and begin teaching the revised standards.
“Clearly, the commission is unwilling to uphold the state’s own curriculum framework and its guidance for new teacher prep programs, as outlined” in state law, said Yolie Flores, president and CEO of Families in Schools, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that advocates on behalf of parents. “Given that, what chance is there that literacy instruction will ever change, and what chance is there that our children will be successful in learning to read?”
The answer may become clearer as other programs come up for review. But the credential commission’s unanimous vote to reaffirm Mills College at Northeastern’s accreditation found support not only among the peer reviewers for the Committee on Accreditation but also from leaders of other teacher prep programs who submitted comments and testimony.
The hearing and the commission’s decision revealed ongoing disagreements over how California’s new literacy standards should be interpreted and implemented and raises the question of whether the Legislature’s intent in ordering a different approach to literacy instruction will be followed with fidelity.
The credentialing commission’s decision was in response to a complaint that Families in Schools and the nonprofits Decoding Dyslexia and California Reading Coalition filed. The organizations hoped that the commission would investigate the accreditation approval for Mills College at Northeastern or order that the program get technical help to bring it into compliance with the new standards.
“Commissioners, it is up to you to make sure the letter and intent of the law is followed. If you don’t do it, it won’t be done, and these terrible results won’t change,” testified Todd Collins of the California Reading Coalition, referring to the low reading proficiency rate of California third graders: 43% overall, and less than a third for Black and Latino children.
Credentialing commissioners instead took the third option — referring the complaint to the Committee on Accreditation without comment.
Under state law, the Committee on Accreditation authorizes program accreditation. The credentialing commission, which appoints the committee’s members, handles complaints about accreditation decisions but not appeals from the public. Because Mills at Northeastern was technically a new institution, created by the merger of Mills College, a former women’s college in Oakland that closed in 2022, with Northeastern University in Boston, it sought and received provisional accreditation. It can pursue full accreditation in 2026.
Commissioners made clear they trusted the accreditation committee’s judgment and peer-review process, which relies on an evaluation by professors of teacher prep programs. Credentialing Commission Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer and others said they found no basis for further inquiry or technical help.
Commissioner Ira Lit, a professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, agreed, adding that he sees “no indication that attention to those frameworks, guidelines and standards of review were amiss in this particular case.”
The Legislature’s mandate in Senate Bill 488 directed the commission to incorporate evidence-based methods of teaching foundational reading skills in its programs for multiple-subject credentials and reading specialists. The literacy skills that teacher candidates would learn to teach include not only phonics, which correlates sounds with letters in the alphabet, but also vocabulary, oral language, fluency, reading comprehension and writing. The commission appointed two dozen reading experts to recommend research-based literacy practices aligned to the state’s existing curriculum frameworks that all teacher preparation programs would adopt.
Collins, Flores and others praised the final package of teacher performance expectations, known as Standard 7 in the program requirements. They said it would meet the needs of all students, including English learners and students with dyslexia.
So did two members of the work group of experts who were skeptical of Mills College at Northeastern’s literacy instruction: Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist who directs the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, and Sue Sears, a professor of special education at CSU Northridge.
They called Standard 7 “a rigorous and comprehensive set of requirements which reflect current reading research and practice.” After examining Mills College at Northeastern’s course syllabi, reading lists, and materials for literacy instruction, they said the program fell far short of the requirements.
In testimony and written comments, they said the school paid “lip service” to foundational skills and failed to document how prospective teachers would teach phonics explicitly and effectively. Among other flaws, the program didn’t mention the importance of screening for dyslexia and how to provide additional help for struggling and multilingual students, Wolf and Sears wrote.
Mills at Northeastern, formed from the merger of Mills College, a 170-year-old former women’s college in Oakland that closed in 2022, with Northeastern University in Boston.
Structured versus balanced literacy
In expressing confidence in a thorough accreditation review process, while not commenting on the substance of the complaint, the credentialing commission dodged the underlying issue. The state had taken a stand in the debate over “structured literacy” versus “balanced literacy.” Standard 7 incorporates structured literacy. Taught under the banner of “science of reading,” it stresses evidence-proven reading strategies using, in the early grades, direct and sequential instruction of phonics and decodable texts.
Balanced literacy, an outgrowth of the once-popular “whole language” approach, downplays phonics, which it views as just one of several strategies in teaching reading. Other methods include “three-cueing,” the technique in which readers use pictures in a book, the first letter of a word and other contextual clues to determine words. It’s grounded in the belief that reading more books tied to the skill level of a child’s fluency and comprehension will make them better, more engaged readers.
Mills College at Northeastern stresses balanced literacy and three-cueing. Its reading assignments include multiple chapters by Fountas and Pinnell, the publisher most identified with balanced literacy.
Approving credential programs like Mills “to provide contradictory instructional practices, some of which are supported by research and others that have been debunked by cognitive scientists years ago, will only serve to create confusion for teaching credential candidates,” Decoding Dyslexia CA co-directors Lori DePole and Megan Potente wrote.
Matthew Burns, a University of Florida reading researcher who said he had studied the effectiveness of Fountas and Pinnell instructional programs and intervention strategies, was blunt. “The three-cueing system should have no place in public education, and should not be part of any preservice training,” he wrote.
In defense of Mills College
Other leaders of teacher preparation programs and advocacy groups in California urged the credentialing commission to uphold the approval.
Stating that a comprehensive literacy curriculum includes background knowledge, multilingualism motivation and diverse text and assessments — not just phonics, Nancy Walker, a professor of literacy education at the University of La Verne, said, “By limiting our focus to the claims made by the popular press and media, we have underrepresented other pieces of reading pedagogy. The Mills College program represents the broad range of literacy as represented in the California literacy frameworks and standards.”
Karen Escalante, an assistant professor of teacher education and foundations at CSU San Bernardino and president of the California Council on Teacher Education, warned that “efforts to pick and choose select elements of teacher preparation syllabi undermine the teaching profession and aim to deprofessionalize a professional workforce.”
Mimi Miller, a professor and literacy teacher educator at CSU Chico, said, “The complaint against Mills privileges one line of research over another. It has inaccurately cited research in order to confirm a set of beliefs about reading instruction.”
“The science of reading is not settled and will never be settled,” she added.
Both the California Teachers Association and Californians Together, which advocates for English and expanding multilingual education, also urged commissioners to uphold the accreditation approval.
“I call on the commission to not make any decisions that would restrict reading instruction in California,” said Manuel Buenrostro, director of policy at Californians Together.
Wolf used her two-minute comment to refute what opponents said regarding the state of research. “Of course, there is the unsettled, but there is far more of the settled neuroscience of reading,” she said.
Mills College at Northeastern “fails to meet the standards that you asked us to bring to every teacher so that every teacher could be prepared to teach every child,” she said.
“I am worrisomely seeing in California that there is becoming more loyalty to past methods that have been shown to be ineffective for our most struggling readers. We can never put loyalty to past methods over loyalty to our children.”
SB 488 under attack
Several commissioners indicated they too support a “balanced” approach to reading instruction, tied to research. Others said the key to improved instruction is understanding socioeconomic and cultural differences among children.
“Culturally responsive teaching practices are what’s going to work to teach those children how to read,” said Commissioner Christopher Davis, pointing to his own experience as a Black child in Los Angeles who did not read an entire book until he was a high school junior. Davis, a middle school language arts teacher in the Berryessa Union School District in San Jose, said, “I want to encourage the public to stop using Black and brown children to prop up their misguided views of what’s happening in schools, because I am one of those people.”
SB 488 requires that all teacher candidates, starting in the spring of 2025, take a performance assessment demonstrating they can effectively teach the new literacy instruction standards. The law also requires the Committee on Accreditation to visit all teacher prep programs in 2024-25 to verify they are employing the new literacy strategies.
But a bill that would remove those provisions before they take effect is moving forward in the Legislature. Senate Bill 1263, sponsored by the California Teachers Association, would eliminate the California Teaching Performance Assessment, known as the CalTPA. And that would include the performance assessment in teaching reading now being developed. The bill, authored by Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, would also drop the on-site visits to verify that teacher prep programs are adhering to the literacy standards. The periodic general accreditation and re-accreditation process, like the one that Mills College passed, would be the one accountability check that California’s new teachers know how to teach structured literacy and the science of reading.
Another bill, which would have extended the same training in structured literacy for new teachers to all elementary school teachers, also would have strengthened the credentialing commission’s literacy expertise. Assembly Bill 2222 would have required that at least one member of the Committee on Accreditation be an expert in the science of reading. And it would have funded several literacy experts for the commission staff.
The same adversaries that fought over Mills College at Northeastern battled over AB 2222. Decoding Dyslexia CA, Families in Schools and California Reading Coalition sponsored the bill. Opposition by CTA, Californians Together and the California Association of Bilingual Educators led Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas to pull the bill without a hearing.
Collins of the California Reading Coalition said he wasn’t surprised by the credentialing commission’s decision. The view of those involved in teacher preparation programs, which is not unique to California, is, ” ‘Let us professionals do our job. We are the ones who can arbitrate whether we’re doing a good job or not. No one else can do that,’ ” he said.
“To the extent that the credentialing commission defers to the process and defers to the people in the higher ed institutions, then change is going to come very, very slowly, if at all,” he said.
