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California’s Reading Dilemma
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The latest push for phonics-based instruction follows decades of debate on how to teach reading.
In response to test scores showing more than half of fourth graders
couldn't read well enough to understand a basic text, Marion Joseph is
appointed to a state task force charged with improving early reading
instruction. A grandmother from Menlo Park dubbed the “Paul Revere of
the Reading Wars," she was a crusader for phonics instruction, which
focuses on the relationships between the letters of written language and
the sounds of spoken language.
She died this year.
The Legislature passed phonics bills, then funded teacher training and
new textbooks based on reading research.
Bill Honig publishes
Teaching Our Children to Read: The Role of Skills in a Comprehensive
Reading Program.
in which he fully embraced phonics instruction, in contrast with the
1980s, when, as state superintendent of public instruction, he supported
a state English language arts framework that was critical of it.
Congress convenes the
National Reading Panel
responding to the national literacy crisis. The panel reviewed
previously published studies and in 2000 recommended the explicit and
systematic teaching of phonemic awareness and phonics, a guided oral
reading strategy, and fluency and comprehension strategies.
Reading First,
a national initiative in favor of evidenced-based phonics reading
instruction, such as the Open Court curriculum, holds sway in
California.
California State Board of Education
on Nov. 4 adopts textbooks and materials for English language arts with
approved curricula, the most recent available to districts.
The landmark “Ella T.” case argued that literacy — the ability to read,
write and understand language — is a civil right. In a 2020 settlement,
California agrees to
spend $50 million
help the lowest-scoring schools.
Plunging reading scores led American Public Media reporter Emily Hanford
to investigate the impact of the reading wars in
an ongoing series of stories
starting in 2018, drawing parent and teacher attention to the flaws in
the system.
Even before the pandemic, national reading scores were low: Only 35% of
fourth graders met the standards for reading proficiency in
The Nation's Report Card: Results from the 2019 Mathematics and
Reading Assessments
an even lower number than in 2017.
Mississippi became the only state in the nation to improve its fourth-grade reading scores, an effort led by
Kymyona Burk. The results were touted as the “Mississippi Miracle.”
The debut of
“Getting Reading Right,”
a course in explaining principles of structured literacy, is launched by
Leslie Zoroya of the Los Angeles County Office Of Education. By fall of 2025,
more than 12,000 teachers statewide had taken the K-5 or 6-12 versions.
U.S. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond creates
a task force to help get all third graders reading by 2026. He rejects a
state-mandated curriculum.
The State Legislature passes
SB 488, primary sponsor Sen. Susan Rubio, D-West Covina, which mandates new
literacy teaching standards for July 2025.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has dyslexia himself, orders a
phonics-based reading program for all schools and targeted services to
identify and help children with dyslexia.
Lucy Calkins, an icon of the balanced literacy camp, admits to flaws in her
philosophy, revising her curriculum to embrace more phonics.
First screening of “The Right to Read,” a documentary produced by LeVar
Burton of Reading Rainbow, it follows the struggle of NAACP activist
Kareem Weaver to replace failed reading instruction in Oakland. The film
is shown throughout the state.
Gavin Newsom signs Assembly Bill 1454.
