The Science of Reading
At the annual National Summit on Education, journalist Emily Hanford, education leader Kareem Weaver, and ExcelinEd's Dr. Kymyona Burk had an insightful presentation on the early literacy crisis facing elementary schools. I strongly encourage everyone to listen to their presentation here.
Ms. Hanford also has a ground-breaking 6-part podcast called “Sold a Story” which delves even deeper into this important topic.
I have long been an advocate for improving K-3 literacy. Ensuring our children can read at grade level sets them up for future success, yet so many students have fallen behind.
The pandemic school closures exacerbated this problem. The National Assessment of Educational Progress results that came out this fall showed that Minnesota students lost 7 points in reading and 10 points in math since 2019, erasing almost two decades of progress in these foundational areas.
Specifically, only 45% of Minnesota students were proficient in math and only 51% (barely half!) were proficient in reading. The numbers are much worse for students of color: Just 20% of Black students and 22% of Hispanic students were proficient in math. Only 31% of Black students and Hispanic students were proficient in reading.
Last session I introduced HF651 to help students, parents, and teachers with early literacy. The bill would require scientific research-based reading instruction and curriculum, provide incentives to retrain teachers, and literacy coaches.
Unfortunately, the bill did not even get a hearing from the DFL Majority. I plan to introduce this bill again next session and I hope to work with my colleagues in both parties to focus on literacy so that we can ensure all Minnesota children can succeed.
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