The Science of Reading for Educators

  Introduction You may have missed the news in North Carolina, but Senate Bill 387 , also known as the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021, was recently passed on April 9, 2021. There has been a great deal of debate and misunderstanding from various groups around the state regarding the passage of this bill. For the past two years, the North Carolina State Board of Education has taken up the issue of early literacy and teacher preparation programs in regards to literacy. The Prek-12 Literacy Instruction and Teacher Preparation Task Force, composed of educators and stakeholders around the state, examined current teacher preparation programs and the state of literacy in North Carolina, and the task force made recommendations to the NC State Board of Education based on their findings. You can read about the specifics in my previous blog posts What’s Happening in North Carolina Literacy and What is Read to Achieve . The current bill aims to align literacy instructional practices in the

Literacy seems to be a universal bipartisan issue that everyone can agree is of utmost importance. In 1965 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESSA) was signed into law by President Lyndon B Johnson with the purpose “to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps.” President Johnson believed this law to be a civil rights law at its heart. However, fourth grade reading proficiency data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that gaps continue to persist between our African American, 18% proficient, and Hispanic, 23% proficient, students when compared to their white peers, 45% proficient (NAEP 2019). Significant gaps are also found when comparing Students with Disabilities, 12% proficient, to their non-disabled peers, 39% proficient, and when comparing students of poverty, 21% proficient, to their more affluent peers, 51% proficient. The ESSA defines comprehe