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If you drop into an elementary reading lesson, you might see kids learning about the long U sound, building their vocabulary or practicing how to read aloud without sounding like robots.

And if you visit Kansas City Public Schools this fall, you should see all students in the same grade learning the same thing.

After all, a push is underway in KCPS to standardize reading lessons and anchor them in evidence about how students learn best.

Around the state, schools are retraining thousands of teachers, replacing outdated reading lessons and identifying students who need extra help.

Missouri is the latest in a string of states to put money and the force of law behind an effort to teach more kids to read.

The strategy hinges on the idea that some teaching methods weren鈥檛 working very well. Kids struggled to , though they were capable of learning. Research 鈥� often known as the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� 鈥� pointed to a better way, but wasn鈥檛 always heeded.

鈥淭eachers that are coming into the profession just don鈥檛 have that science of reading background from universities,鈥� said Connie Moore, director of elementary curriculum at KCPS.听

Evidence-based teacher training is 鈥渁ssisting those brand new teachers, even veteran teachers, that have students come with reading deficiencies or specific needs around reading,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting students to read on grade level, because that鈥檚 the ultimate goal.鈥�

Missouri law changes

A Missouri adopted in 2022 requires that all public school elementary students get reading instruction that has proved 鈥渉ighly likely to be effective.鈥�

That means the teaching techniques must have been studied by looking at the outcome for large numbers of students, and that they include five key components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Previously, science of reading proponents say, many students weren鈥檛 getting enough phonics instruction. Most kids need to be explicitly taught about sounds, how they relate to letters and how to use that knowledge to decode words.

Meanwhile, students that many now see as damaging 鈥� things like using pictures and context to guess words rather than sounding them out.

What a student learned in class could be the luck of the draw, said Megan Mitchell, a K-5 English language arts curriculum coordinator at KCPS.

One teacher might spend most of their time on foundational phonics skills while another might focus on comprehension, she said. But students need systematic instruction in all five areas.

Teachers also need to know how to work with students who need extra help.

鈥淏efore, I may have heard the (student鈥檚) error, but just didn鈥檛 really have a concrete way to understand where that was coming from,鈥� Moore said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going on that is causing this student to make this error, and how can I work with them to correct it?鈥�

The law is meant to push schools toward proven strategies.

include standards for . The law also gives the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education power to recommend curriculum, offer more teacher training and closely track how well young students can read.

Students who don鈥檛 score well on reading tests are supposed to receive intensive help.

But putting new education laws into action can be harder than getting them passed, said Torree Pederson, the president and CEO of Aligned, a nonprofit coalition of business leaders pushing for education reform.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e handing it off to an agency that鈥檚 already stretched and asking them to do more,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not an easy task to retrain all the teachers in Missouri.鈥�

Implementing the law

The state doesn鈥檛 have the power to mandate curriculum or teacher training, but it is nudging districts in a certain direction.

With $25 million in state dollars and $35 million in federal relief money, the state education department is willing to pay for specific intensive reading training for at least 15,000 teachers.

The , called LETRS and pronounced 鈥渓etters,鈥� emphasizes the science of reading and the five reading components Missouri law supports. It can take up to 168 hours over the course of at least two years.

The state also offers grants to replace old curriculum with evidence-based materials. Schools that don鈥檛 qualify for the grants can use the state鈥檚 as a guide.

About 11,000 teachers have at least started the training under the . Heather Knight, the state鈥檚 literacy coordinator, said several thousand more have been trained since 2021 through other state or local programs.

The state originally targeted K-3 and preschool teachers, but opened the training up to fourth and fifth grade teachers as well.

More than 480 of the roughly 550 school districts and charter schools in Missouri are participating. But even districts that appreciate LETRS training aren鈥檛 embracing it at the same pace.

KCPS has required the training for early elementary teachers, reading specialists and others, seeing it as a way to comply with the law on evidence-based instruction, Moore said. Practically all teachers in those groups have at least started the training.

North Kansas City Public Schools took a slower, more cautious approach, said instructional coordinator Lisa Friesen.

The training is now encouraged but not required for most teachers, Friesen said. About a third of elementary teachers have registered.

Some of the lessons from LETRS have made their way into the district鈥檚 reading curriculum, which is designed in-house and updated yearly.

Momentum to change

Mitchell, the KCPS curriculum coordinator, thinks it was about four years ago when she started to hear about the science of reading.

The news came through research for her job, but also from a science of reading Facebook group and from American Public Media podcast 鈥�,鈥� which has helped and inform a wider audience about reading research.

Although much of the research on reading there鈥檚 new momentum behind evidence-based teaching. But Missouri is far from the first to try it.

A 2013 law gets credit for the 鈥淢ississippi miracle,鈥� where that state鈥檚 reading scores dramatically increased. All school districts saw improvement, though . Several other states have seen notable gains as well. And Florida, whose 2002 reading legislation inspired Mississippi鈥檚, has among the best reading scores.

In early 2024, reported that 37 states and the District of Columbia had passed reading legislation in the past decade, most within the past five years, and 17 of them within 2023 alone.

A January 2024 from ExcelInEd, a nonprofit founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, shows nearly all states have adopted some reading policies. Missouri now checks most of the think tank鈥檚 boxes.

Those lists don鈥檛 include which Gov. Laura Kelly signed in April.

New curriculum

Companies that produce curriculum and other classroom resources are taking note.

Education company Learning A-Z knew schools would be looking for materials based on the science of reading, in part because of state law changes, President Aaron Ingold said.

So the company, which had focused on supplemental resources, recently got into creating a comprehensive curriculum called Foundations A-Z. It鈥檚 on Missouri鈥檚听 list of recommended resources.

Learning A-Z has changed some of its thinking, Ingold said. It no longer includes 鈥渃ueing,鈥� an out-of-favor strategy that encourages children to look at context such as pictures and sentence structure to figure out words rather than sounding them out.

Instead, the program includes more phonics instruction and books known as 鈥渄ecodables鈥� that contain words and spelling patterns students have learned.

Moore said the science of reading is an example of how research doesn鈥檛 always 鈥渢rickle down to us in a timely manner.鈥�

But with training and curriculum companies on board, and the expectation that teachers will see gains in the classroom, she thinks it鈥檚 more than a passing fad.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 something that鈥檚 going to come and go in education,鈥� she said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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