New lessons on reading
Gov offers curriculum to address deficiencies
Gov. Hochul on Wednesday introduced a framework to overhaul reading curriculum across the state, emphasizing phonics, after city officials introduced similar, sweeping changes to literacy education in city elementary school districts.
The proposal comes with many young children struggling to develop literacy skills across the state. In the last school year, fewer than 4 in 10 Black and Latino students statewide scored proficient in third-grade English Language Arts, state test scores show.
Hochul’s office said the state’s new plan would gear school curriculum toward the so-called science of reading approach. The science of reading is a phonics-based approach, meaning that it emphasizes the sounds of letters in helping children learn to read.
“We’re going to turn the page on how we teach young people to read,” Hochul, a Democrat declared at a news conference in a school library in upstate Watervliet. “This is a long overdue opportunity.”
The governor said the majority of schools in New York are using outdated reading education methods.
Her plan, if approved, would task the New York State Education Department with instituting guidelines requiring that school districts across the state use the science of reading approach by 2025. The state would not exempt high-performing schools, Hochul’s office said.
“New York City is shifting to this, so I have to look out for the rest of the state and break open the inertia that has stopped this,” the governor told reporters. “This is a radical change, but it is one that actually makes sense.”
Twenty-six states have passed laws since 2019 that either require or encourage schools and teacher preparation programs to provide literacy instruction that emphasizes phonics, according to The Education Trust — New York, a nonprofit.
“Reading proficiently by the end of third grade is one of the most important indicators of future student success,” said Jeff Smink, interim executive director. Students who do not reach it are four times more likely to drop out of school, the organization has found.
For some students — especially those for whom English is their second language, and those with learning disabilities who often need more explicit instruction — reading education approaches that integrate phonics appear to produce better results than those that do not, according to research.
Phonics, once called phonetics, has fallen out of favor at times, supplanted by the competing whole language method that teaches students to learn entire words rather than sound them out.
Hochul said “study after study” had shown that reading education without a phonics element is not “getting the job done.”
The governor’s office outlined a $10 million state investment to train 20,000 teachers in science of reading instruction, and a broadening of public state and city universities’ credentialing programs in science of reading instruction.
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said in a statement that “evidence-based literacy instruction methods” help teachers “provide a comprehensive approach that enhances literacy skills and equips learners.”
Hochul called her program a “back to basics” plan.
In May, Mayor Adams’ administration introduced its overhaul of literacy education, a program that requires educators to use one of three reading programs. The shift, already implemented in about half the city’s school districts — mostly in Brooklyn and Queens — centers phonics in reading education.
New York City’s program is a signature policy for Adams, who was diagnosed with dyslexia in college, and his schools chancellor, David Banks.
“For far too long, we gave our teachers the wrong literacy playbook and our students suffered,” said Nicole Brownstein, a spokeswoman for the city’s public schools, which she added are “leading the way in revolutionizing literacy instruction.”
“However, our work will be hampered without significant changes at the teacher preparation programs. We … are thrilled to have [Hochul’s] support in giving our teachers the training and tools they need to shift how we teach our children to read,” she said.
Hochul announced the state program as she prepares for her State of the State speech next Tuesday. The annual address, Hochul’s third as governor, figures to be packed with initiatives that will set the tone for her negotiations with lawmakers during this year’s legislative session in Albany.
On Tuesday, Hochul proposed a plan to broadly wipe out some New Yorkers’ out-of-pocket insurance co-payments for insulin, the ubiquitous but sometimes pricey diabetes treatment.