Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has been pushing to use the phonics-based science of reading since early 2023, mandating this approach as the only way to teach reading in elementary schools.
Now he’s targeting kindergartens and younger children, this time with a carrot and without a stick.
DeWine and the Department of Children and Youth have been offering free, voluntary online lessons in the science of reading to kindergarten teachers and administrators for almost a year.
Last month, DeWine and state officials set aside $5 million in federal grants to offer $750 bonuses to kindergarten teachers and administrators who complete at least 10 hours of the training next summer.
“By offering Science of Reading training to those who teach and care for our young children, we will empower these educators to lay the foundation so that more of our children can reach their full potential,” DeWine said in a news release announcing the subsidies.
Within a week, more than 500 teachers had applied for the $750.
Early childhood experts say that while preschools don’t provide the same intensity of reading lessons as preschool and first grade teachers, there are ways to subtly improve young children’s understanding of letters and their sounds through play, songs and games that suit their age.
Preschool is a “golden opportunity to take advantage of the unique energy, curiosity, and explosive growth in oral language that children experience during the preschool years,” wrote University of California Berkely Emerita professor Lily Wong Fillmore and professor Susan Neumann at the New York University for The 74 earlier this year.
“First experiences with learning have exponential power: they can shape lifelong learning habits and accelerate literacy, especially for English language learners,” they wrote.
How many states have made the science of reading a focus for kindergarten is unclear, especially because states do not require preschool and few pay for it. Nationally, only 35 percent of four-year-olds attend kindergarten, according to the National Institutes for Early Childhood Research at Rutgers University.
But NIEER researcher Lori Connors-Tadros said requiring or encouraging science of reading methods in preschools, as Ohio does, is “a growing trend.”
“Legislators are adding requirements if they have a state-funded Pre-K program around preschool teacher training, and in some states they are even requiring some training for administrators,” she said.
DeWine and the Ohio Legislature joined a national movement for the science of reading in 2023, directing schools to stop using other methods and implement the curriculum by the 2024-2025 school year.
They budgeted $64 million to help school districts buy new teaching materials and required teachers from kindergarten and up to be trained in the science of reading concepts.
The state then created a series of online classes that last eight hours for some high school teachers and administrators and 22 hours for most elementary school teachers.
According to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, more than 85,000 K-12 teachers completed this training by the end of October.
The state also began offering two free online training courses for preschool staff — one for three- and four-year-olds and one for younger infants and toddlers — through the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy, based in Atlanta last December.
Students at First Baptist Church Children’s Center in Shaker Heights, Ohio, learn about the sounds each letter represents, not just what they look like and their order.
Jane Pernicone, director of the First Baptist Church Children’s Center in Shaker Heights, Ohio, said she was taking some classes and planned to have teachers at her center for 100 children take over them in the coming years.
Now that scholarships are available, Pernicone says she is encouraging her eight lead teachers to take the classes right away to earn the bonus. The state limits grants to $3,000 per preschool, or four staff members, so Pernicone said she would skip her bonus and split the total grants among the eight teachers.
Although her center primarily used the science of reading through the Creative Curriculum materials, Pernicone said the lessons are a good reinforcement and reminder to focus on using varied vocabulary, engaging with children continuously in conversations and showing them what each letter sounds like and not just teaching them. what are the letters.
“It’s a good awareness for staff to realise… ‘oh, I need to focus on building the vocabulary’… rather than just making sure kids know their ABCs,” she said . “There’s a lot of good content, it’s just kind of a restatement of good practices.”
The $5 million for the grants comes from the federal Preschool Development Birth through Five Grant and the Child Care and Development Fund. DeWine’s office did not respond to questions about whether his new two-year state budget proposal, due early next year, would include money for reading training for preschoolers.
