All Ohio School Districts Now Teach Science of Reading Curriculum

This article was originally published in Ohio Capital Journal.

As students return to school this fall, their reading curriculum might look a little different.

This is the first academic year Ohio school districts are required to teach the science of reading curriculum, which is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

“The most important thing for school to teach a child is how to read because it’s their access to the rest of their education and to their life,” said Brett Tingley, the president of both Parents for Reading Justice and OH-KID (Ohio Kids Identified with Dyslexia).

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A portion of the state’s two-year operating budget goes toward the science of reading — $86 million for educator professional development, $64 million for curriculum and instructional materials, and $18 million for literacy coaches.

Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state budget into law last summer and teachers across the state have been receiving professional development to prepare for the upcoming school year.

“The jury has returned. The evidence is clear. The verdict is in,” DeWine has repeatedly said when talking about the science of reading.

Tingley has been working on this for about a decade and she is grateful DeWine put the science of reading in the state budget.

“To get his buy-in is so important,” she said.

Forty percent of Ohio’s third-graders are not proficient in reading and 33% of third graders were not proficient in reading before COVID-19.

Ohio’s law bans school districts from using the “three-cueing approach” in lessons unless a district or a school gets a waiver from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce or a student has an individualized education program that specifically includes the “three-cueing approach.”

The “three-cueing approach” is any model of teaching students to read based on meaning, structure and syntax and visual cues. It often encourages children to read words by asking three questions: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right?

“They should not be asking kids to guess by looking at a word, by looking at the pictures, or by guessing at the context,” Tingley said. “They should be having kids sound out words.”

Requiring science of reading curriculum is a step in the right direction, said Kerry Agins, a Cleveland lawyer that specializes in representing students with special education needs.

“It’s important that our school districts are choosing curriculums and intervention programs that embrace the science of reading,” she said. “For too long, we have used programs that are not aligned to evidence based intervention practices, and we have seen that students have not made the progress that they need to make in order to be proficient readers.”

ODEW was required to come up with a list of curriculum and instructional materials that align with the science of reading.

About a third of Ohio’s school districts and community schools are already using at least one of the approved core reading instruction curriculum that ODEW came up with.

Ohio is one of 39 states and the District of Columbia that has passed laws or implemented new politics related to evidence-based reading instruction since 2013 as of last week, according to an Education Week analysis .

The other piece of the science of reading implementation affects higher education — specifically teacher prep programs.

“If the professors are not training people in the science of reading, then the school district ends up training the teacher and spending a ton of money that they don’t need to spend on professional development,” Tingley said.

The Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Mike Duffey is tasked with creating an audit process that demonstrates how each educator training program aligns with teaching the science of reading instruction.

The formal audits will begin in January and Duffey can revoke a college or university’s approval if they fail the audit.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com . Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X .