U.S. students need help reading. How about helping their teachers?

For decades, Mississippi students have struggled with reading and the quality of education in the state has been poor. Not anymore. Strong student test scores, dubbed the “Mississippi Miracle,” thrust the southern state into the national spotlight.

But the state superintendent at the helm of these literacy reforms has repeatedly spoken out against the buzzword. Instead, Carey Wright called the state's success the “Mississippi Marathon.”

“This is not something that happens overnight,” Dr. Wright, now Maryland state superintendent, said at a conference this year. Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce Event. “It's something that happens over time.”

Why did we write this

Dozens of states have passed laws defining a “science of reading” approach to helping students in need. But who teaches teachers how to do this?

Literacy experts say this is thanks to a sustainable approach to teaching based on the “science of reading” and a trained workforce that supports it. Slowly but surely, they say, the nation's higher education and K-12 systems are trying to close the knowledge gap between the science of reading laws and the workforce tasked with teaching children to read.

Today, about 40 states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies related to reading science, according to Education Week Analysis. California took another step in that direction when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in October providing funding for teacher training and instructional materials. mission behind laws It's urgent: Nationwide, 40% of fourth graders are reading at a level considered “below basic” by the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But legislation can only go so far without adequate teacher training. If need or appetite sparks any question, consider the 243,000-member Facebook group called “The Science of Reading – What I Should Have Learned in College.” Daily posts, many written by teachers, provide tips or suggestions.

“Do schools have a level of literacy in conditions [science of reading] approach and what do your intervention services look like?” one of the group members recently asked.

What do teachers need to know?

In classrooms that use a reading science approach, teachers place greater emphasis on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

If you're scratching your head, think of it this way: Children learn that sounds correspond to letters or combinations of letters, which then form words. And words have meaning, and when put together they tell a story.

Two years ago, only 28% of teacher preparation programs adequately addressed these components of evidence-based reading instruction, the data showed. review of the National Council on Teacher Quality. And 22% of programs did not adequately prepare beginning teachers in any of these components.

When the board releases its next review of teacher preparation programs in the spring, Heather Pesce, the group's president, expects to see improvements.

Tutor Emily Rock works with first-graders at East Side Elementary School in Elizabethton, Tennessee, on January 12, 2022. Tennessee's reading scores have rebounded in the years since the state took steps to help students, including offering more support to teachers.

“The reason I'm optimistic is that many states have passed new reading laws that include requirements for teacher preparation programs to align their curriculum with the science of reading,” she says, pointing to Colorado and Mississippi as examples.

These two states also require a rigorous licensing exam for teachers entering the classroom.

“The gap between research and practice”

When it comes to higher education, Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts is one of the leading institutions. A private Christian college is accepting applicants for its new doctoral program in learning science, which will begin next summer and will include language and literacy education.

The program builds on the college's existing efforts to train beginning teachers in an evidence-based approach, but targets new audiences: educational leaders, teacher educators, and advocates. Gordon officials hope this will create a multiplier effect.

“There is a gap between research and practice. Research has been going on for a long time, but it takes a long time to put it into practice,” says Julia D'Onofrio, an education professor at Gordon. The goal of the program will be to equip doctoral students with the knowledge needed to “read research and translate it into teaching practice for faculty.”

But a major shift in teacher preparation programs across the country will take time. First, literacy experts say competence remains a barrier. College professors may not be very well versed in the science of reading.

And the very definition of the science of reading can become a pedagogical obstacle. Cognitive neuroscientists such as Maryann Wolf, director of the Center for Dyslexia, Student Diversity and Social Justice at UCLA, advocate for a broader understanding of evidence-based approaches. She says it should include both basic literacy skills and deep reading skills.

“It’s slower,” Dr. Wolf says, referring to teacher training, “because I think people don’t understand that it’s not just phonics.”

Getting ready for Friday night

Laura Patranella, a fifth-grade teacher from Seguin, Texas, admits she has an unconventional hobby on Friday and Saturday nights. She reads books on how to improve her learning through the science of reading.

“I'm always obsessively looking for a new way of doing things,” she says. “It’s just a small adjustment that really has a big impact.”

Her dedication to her craft paid off. Last school year, Ms. Patranella said, 83 percent of her students showed growth in reading skills on the Texas standardized test known as STAAR (State Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness). Her students' success fuels her desire to learn more on her own, but she knows it's a challenge for her peers in the field.

“There’s never enough time to teach,” she says. “If you're overwhelmed, there's only so much you can do.”

So what's the best way to train teachers who didn't take reading science in college?

Tennessee took an approach that heavily favored practical application in the classroom. Using pandemic-era funding and federal grants, the state launched a Reading 360 program several years ago that included resources for schools and summer teacher training.

Teacher training took place through an online course and then, more importantly, in groups that included peers—teachers, literacy coaches and principals—from the same schools, said Lisa Coons, a former chief scientist at the Tennessee Department of Education who led the Reading 360 initiative.

“It will give you strength when you go back to class,” she says. “You can walk down the hall to your second-grade teacher and ask, ‘What did we do? How does this work with my materials?

The Educational Recovery Scorecard, a collaboration between researchers at Harvard and Stanford Universities, found that Tennessee ranked 9th in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024. Southern states places like Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi also saw significant growth in reading during this period.

These four states have been involved in this for a long time, said Dr. Coons, who most recently served as Virginia state superintendent.

“It was a deep five-year, seven-year, 10-year commitment to this work,” she says. “And it will take that deep and sustained commitment to ensure that we implement the right practices for our students over time.”

But not all the work happens at the state or school district level. This is partly due to grassroots efforts to meet teacher demand for literacy instruction.