Massachusetts, for long the nation’s undisputed leader in education, is slipping. It has been slower than other states to rebound from the pandemic. Too many third grade children can’t read. Only 1/3 of MA 4th graders & MA 8th graders read at grade level on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. Yet researchers say that 98% of children absolutely can learn to read, and, clearly, they have a right to read. It’s essential to developing their potential and making their way in the world.

If their literacy foundation is crumbling by third grade, more academic trouble lies ahead. Children who can’t read in grade three are routinely bullied by classmates and develop low self-esteem with all the predictable social adjustment problems.  Over time, they are less apt to finish high school and go on to successful work lives. According to the Justice Department, 75 percent of prison inmates are illiterate.

Shocking as it may seem to those of us of a certain (ahem) age, many educators have not been using phonics (the relationship between letters and sounds) or teaching grammar, leaving young students behind, especially those with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. The trend for years has been to rely on encouraging students to guess from illustrations or story development what the accompanying words are. This workaround is not good enough. And a bill that was recently passed by the Massachusetts House would remedy this problem. On October 29, the legislation passed 155-0, despite opposition from the Mass. Teachers Association (MTA).

Waltham-based reading teacher and dyslexia expert Susan B. Kahn, herself a member of MTA, disagrees with the MA Teachers Association because it is clinging to a position taken four years ago. She points out that, in the intervening time, based on evidence, forty states and the District of Columbia have passed literacy laws requiring instruction with Science of Reading methods. Without awaiting state mandate, some MA school systems, like Newton and Wellesley, have already acted on the research and changed their reading methods to include an emphasis on phonics.

The House Bill and the Senate version (S. 338) are designed to promote high-quality comprehensive literacy instruction in all Massachusetts schools. The Joint Committee on Education voted the bill out of Committee, and now it sits with the Senate Ways & Means Committee. It calls for local school district curriculum frameworks to align elementary literacy education with evidence-based literacy instruction, especially if “more than 50 percent of students in kindergarten through third grade are below relevant benchmarks for age-typical development in specific literacy skills.”

The bill would provide training and resources to educate teachers in the most effective teaching tools and amplify their use in the classroom. The legislation specifies five essential components of reading instruction based on reliable, trustworthy, and valid evidence consistent with scientifically based reading research: phonetic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency and oral reading/communication skills. The legislation specifically excludes visual memorization of whole words, guessing from context, and picture cues.

The focus is on literacy teachers, paraprofessionals, and reading specialists in grades pre-kindergarten through third grade.

This should be a no-brainer. It was for the state of Mississippi that in 2013 ranked 49^th in children’s reading capabilities and has now moved into ninth place. How?  By dropping “whole language” reading instruction — again, that which teaches kids to recognize words by sight or context — and replacing it with more phonics-based “science of reading” methods (again, those that build on cognitive science and neuroscience on how brains process reading). Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama are following the same model.

The concept has traction well beyond education circles. Former Obama chief of staff and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushed for such evidence-based learning as mayor and is talking about it again as he lays the groundwork for a campaign for President in 2028.

Literacy is the key to just about everything needed for our kids to develop their fullest potential.  The Massachusetts Senate should act immediately on the House-passed legislation, and Governor Maura Healey, who has made early literacy education a priority, should sign it into law without delay.

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