State’s effort to improve teaching of reading reaches milestones

Arkansas’ ongoing effort to transform the teaching of reading to better align with research and to improve student achievement has hit some milestones, state Division of Elementary and Secondary Education leaders say.

Those developments include:

• Production of the 14th and final video course for middle and high school teachers who are required by state law to demonstrate awareness of the science behind reading.

• Approval of state rules that in part describe how elementary and special education teachers can demonstrate proficiency, which they are required to show by the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.

• The forthcoming distribution of $9 million from a multiyear $38 million federal grant to be used by applicant school systems to purchase materials and otherwise support reading instruction.

The milestones come in the state’s third year of R.I.S.E Arkansas — the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence.

The multifaceted initiative provides teachers with different levels of training in reading science and strategies. The particular kind of training depends on whether the educator teaches elementary school grades and/or special education and needs to be proficient in the science and instruction, or teaches middle and high school and needs to be aware of strategies available to spot and help struggling readers.

Stacy Smith, Arkansas’ assistant education commissioner for learning services and one of the program’s architects, recently called R.I.S.E. “the most powerful and successful” of the initiatives undertaken by the state education agency, and one that has drawn national attention.

“I jokingly say ‘Arkansas is on the R.I.S.E.’ all the time,” Smith said.

“We really are on the rise in literacy,” she continued. “I’m confident we are going to see this reflected in our [student] test scores in comparison with other states, but it takes time. We are in our third year of consistently going down the same path. We hear anecdotally all the time from teachers who say, ‘Wow, this has opened my eyes’ or ‘I’ve been in the classroom for 20 years — why didn’t I know this?’”

The state education division, in partnership with