House Bill 1015 would formally implement the “five essential components of reading” into curricula across the state. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
Teachers and officials at New Hampshire public schools would be required to update how they teach reading, under a bill headed to Gov. Chris Sununu’s desk.
House Bill 1015, which passed the Senate by voice vote on Thursday, would formally implement the “five essential components of reading” into curricula across the state. That teaching process, developed in 1997 by the National Reading Panel, focuses on teaching phonics rather than older instructional models that let students guess words based on visual patterns.
The approach was praised by experts and teachers for decades as a more thorough way to teach reading, but not all New Hampshire school districts have implemented it on their own, say supporters of the bill.
“This bill can ensure that all New Hampshire children receive reading development and instruction that is delivered in a manner that meets their individual abilities and individual needs,” Rep. Corrine Cascadden, a Berlin Democrat, said in testimony before the Senate.
below current lawelementary schools are required to teach literacy through third grade, education that includes “reading, writing, speaking, listening, reasoning, and mathematics.”
The bill requires instruction through fifth grade and adds specific requirements to that instruction. According to the bill, education must be measurable and evidence-based, and include instruction in the five components: “phonemic awareness, phonics (both decoding and encoding sounds and words), fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.”
Instruction should be aimed at enabling every student to achieve “grade-level literacy,” according to the bill.
The bill also expands the current requirement that schools teach math by requiring “mathematical reasoning” and “mathematical calculation” in state law.
If the bill is signed, it won’t go into effect until July 2027, which sponsors say is intended to give schools more time to implement it.
Cascadden, a former principal of a primary school in Berlin, said she implemented the five components in 2005, when they were recommended by the state Ministry of Education at the time. “We saw success in the percentage of children who improved in literacy,” she said.
But she said less emphasis has been placed on the practice and some schools have since “fallen by the wayside”.
The bill passed the House almost unanimously in March, 365 to 9.
Governor’s bill requiring schools to adopt modern reading classes first appeared on New Hampshire Bulletin.
