Source: EdSource
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval of Assembly Bill 1454 on Thursday marks the culmination of a five-year campaign to change how California children are taught to read. But education advocates say there is still much the state needs to do to ensure the state literacy plan is properly implemented, and that school districts and universities are held accountable.
With this last piece of the puzzle, the state has joined a national effort to change how reading is taught in schools, focusing on a method that teaches students to decode words by sounding them out, a process known as phonics.
The new legislation provides elementary school teachers with training in evidence-based reading instruction, also known as the science of reading. It also requires the California State Board of Education to adopt compatible instructional materials for first through eighth grade classrooms.
Newsom signed the legislation Thursday at Alexander Science Center School in Los Angeles during a press conference to announce improved state test scores.
He used the event to congratulate Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and education advocates for creating conditions that led to bipartisan support for the bill.
The state is targeting literacy in a way it hasn’t been done before, Newsom said. “We need to do better, and we are doing more,” he said.
The governor included $480 million in the 2025-26 budget to support literacy instruction, including $200 million in one-time funding to pay for evidence-based literacy training for elementary school teachers.
“Literacy is the pathway to success — all of California’s kids deserve to discover the joys and benefits of reading, and the power to formulate and express their ideas,” Newsom said in June. “I’m proud to unveil the Golden State Plan for Literacy today to give teachers, schools, and students the power to read — and succeed.”
California has a lot to lose
For California students, when it comes to early literacy, a great deal is at risk. In 2024, fewer than half of the state’s third grade students were deemed proficient in English — a predictor of future academic success.
State leaders are hopeful that by switching to evidence-based reading instruction, California can follow in the steps of states such as Mississippi, which jumped in rankings from 49th to 9th in national fourth-grade reading scores.
And, to ensure there is targeted support for students, California will begin screening kindergarten through second grade students this year for reading difficulties, including dyslexia. California has invested $53 million to train staff and to develop the screening process.
Implementation is key
California education advocates interviewed by EdSource are cautiously optimistic about the state plan, which provides teacher training and a list of state-selected textbooks, but does not make them mandatory.
School districts that deviate from the state list of instructional materials must certify that the materials align with evidence-based literacy instruction and offer tiered support for English learners and students with reading difficulties.
“I think in terms of the policy foundation, we’ve got most of it in place now,” said Marshall Tuck of EdVoice, an education advocacy organization. “My guess is he (Newsom) would also say it’s not a complete plan until classroom instruction in schools up and down the state has improved in terms of reading outcomes.”
The success of the state literacy plan will depend on school district leadership and how they communicate the changes with teachers, said Kareem Weaver, co-founder and executive director of the Oakland-based literacy advocacy group FULCRUM.
“You can mandate curricula, but you can’t make people use it with fidelity,” Weaver said.
To ensure teachers are invested in the training, districts should provide them with a menu of quality training options and pay them to attend, he said.
“Passing these laws, and putting this policy in place is kind of the easy part,” said Megan Potente, state director of Decoding Dyslexia CA. “The big issue is going to be getting the districts to really follow through. … We need very strong leadership from the state with coordinated efforts from the county offices.”
State leaders must prioritize literacy for at least the next four or five years, and be prepared to change some of the foundational policy around it based on what is learned through implementation of the new legislation, Tuck said. The state also should collect data on how many teachers complete the training and which training programs and instructional materials districts choose, he said.
“If we are going to lift up reading outcomes, where all kids are at or close to grade level — and we can do it and I believe our state can — we have got to have just the same amount of energy and focus and intensity that we had on the policy agenda, on the policy follow-through and implementation,” Tuck said.
Learning will look different
With the literacy plan in place, soon learning to read should start to look different, especially in the younger grades. Instead of teaching students to recognize whole words, teachers are likely to encourage students to sound them out aloud.
Because of increased state funding for the literacy plan, schools are also more likely to have additional reading coaches to support students and teachers. And beginning as early as this school year, students in kindergarten through second grade will be screened for possible reading difficulties, including dyslexia.
Two weeks ago, Petrina Miller’s transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students read their first word after she introduced them to their third sound. After the students put the three sounds together — M-A-T — they celebrated with laughter, applause and a drum roll.
Then the class learned similar words like “cat” and “gnat.”
Miller, who teaches at the 116th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, says now that the Los Angeles Unified School District is using evidence-based literacy instruction in its schools, her students are decoding words much faster.
The program was a big change for Miller, who for over 25 years brought her alphabet flash cards to teach children to read. She says professional development for teachers must be more interactive and teach them to engage students to be effective.
Violet Nye calls literacy instruction “listening games” to keep the interest of her kindergarten class at Del Dayo Elementary School in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento.
“It’s really nice to be using a common language with everyone,” she said. “We’re going to talk about our sounds today. We’re going to talk about how to spell our sounds today. And these are real tools that they can take with them into first grade. Those sounds and spellings will then build words. And so it’s reading, but it’s also writing.”
More work is underway
A committee of educators will spend the next year or so adopting a list of textbooks and instructional materials to be used in classrooms. The committee’s work will have a huge impact on what happens in classrooms, Tuck said.
The Department of Education estimates it will cost about $324,000 each year for the State Board of Education to adopt new textbooks and instructional materials that align with the new state requirements by January 2027.
The California Department of Education will develop a list of approved professional development options for TK-5 teachers and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing will begin work to ensure preparation programs for school administrators and literacy leadership specialists are aligned with state requirements for evidence-based literacy instruction.
Five years of planning
Efforts to improve literacy in California began in earnest in 2020 with state leaders allocating $50 million for the Early Literacy Support Block Grant. Since then, the state has set aside approximately $1 billion to improve literacy, including $500 million for literacy coaches and $200 million for teacher training.
Along with the approval of AB 1454, the passage of Senate Bill 488 in 2021 was core to completing a comprehensive literacy plan that starts with university teacher preparation programs and extends to the classroom.
SB 488 requires teacher preparation programs to instruct teacher candidates to use evidence-based strategies to teach literacy. It also requires that new teachers pass a literacy teaching performance assessment.
The performance assessment allows teachers to demonstrate their competence by submitting evidence of their instructional practice through video clips and written reflections on their practice.
Eleven of the state’s 229 teacher preparation programs have yet to complete the certification process to prove they are teaching evidence-based literacy instruction to their teacher candidates, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reported Friday.
The commission is giving these programs until Oct. 30 to complete the certification, which includes peer review by external literacy experts and commission staff. If they do not comply, commission staff will direct the Committee on Accreditation to place them on probation.
“The good news is that they’ve identified the schools of ED that haven’t done it, and they’re intervening and figuring out what the accountability is, but there’s not a firm, clear escalation of accountability that’s built into the law,” Tuck said.
It took compromise
The journey to a comprehensive literacy plan hasn’t been without controversy. In the year before AB 1454 passed the state Legislature in September, two similar literacy bills — Assembly Bill 2222 and Assembly Bill 1121 — died after strong opposition.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas finally forged a deal for AB 1454 after asking bill supporters to settle their differences with advocates for English learners and the California Teachers Association.
The decision to compromise on teacher training was easier for advocacy groups that supported the former bills once Newsom put funding behind the training, Tuck said.
“We felt if there’s money, and you have to transition to the instructional materials, education leaders will take the pd (professional development),” he said.
Jill Kerper Mora, professor emerita at San Diego State University, participated in the negotiations for the California Association for Bilingual Education. The professional development the bill will provide for teachers is crucial, she said, noting that she was not speaking for CABE.
“I think it will improve their instruction,” Mora said. “I’ve always made it clear that I do not oppose the science of reading research. I oppose certain interpretations of the science ofreading research. If teachers get more knowledge of linguistics, how languages work, how they transfer and don’t transfer, that’s important.”
Advocacy groups that helped hammer out the state’s literacy legislation say they will be keeping watch to ensure the state and school district do their part.
“Parents and other advocates outside of the system had played a strong role in getting these bills passed, so surely advocacy groups such as DDCA and others in the literacy coalition are watching carefully and investing resources in supporting the implementation,” Potente said.