Los Angeles Unified is moving ahead with districtwide lesson plans based on the science of reading, even after state lawmakers rejected legislation requiring the curriculum.
About half of the 434 elementary schools in the nation’s second-largest school system have already adopted lessons tailored to the phonics-based science of reading, according to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. The district aims to have the method applied to all primary schools in the coming school year 2024-2025.
The project aligns Los Angeles with other major districts across the country, such as New York City, that have also begun implementing evidence-based tactics for teaching literacy amid a national reading crisis.
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But LAUSD faces some unique obstacles. A report released in February by the advocacy group Families in Schools details the gaps in teaching and the divide between parents and teachers on how to teach reading.
LAUSD lags behind other districts in California in reading scores, a state with one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.
LA Unified’s plan also puts California’s largest district at odds with state lawmakers, who introduced a bill this month that would require reading instruction based on decoding words using letters and a focus on phonics.
The proposed law, which was supported by groups including the California State PTA and the NAACP, died in committee after the state teachers union and English teaching groups registered their opposition.
The Legislature’s rejection of the bill caused the nation’s most populous state to turn away from a national trend toward mandates for science-based reading instruction.
Dozens of states have adopted such laws and policies, including Mississippi, Ohio, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas.
The push for a unified, evidence-based approach to literacy education is facing obstacles in Los Angeles Unified, where only about a quarter of students met reading standards on the most recent assessments.
The district in June replaced a key intervention program aimed at boosting the reading and math skills of elementary school students who had difficulty using materials based on the science of reading.
The new approach, known as the Literacy and Numeracy Intervention Model, will cost less and also reach middle school students, according to district officials.
Carvalho said in an interview in December that the district had made “significant progress” in rolling out a uniform set of curriculum options aligned with the science of reading in elementary schools involved, and that by June 2024 it would have “systemic adoption for would reach everyone’. levels.”
Last month he adjusted the timeline and said in a subsequent interview that all primary schools would have access to the materials by the start of the coming academic year in August.
The superintendent said the district would use the additional time over the summer to conduct training for teachers on the new instructional approaches and materials.
“I think we’re in a good place so far, given the size of our district,” Carvalho said. “It’s a huge undertaking.”
According to Carvalho, under the district’s new approach, schools will choose from a menu of curricula that include approaches to literacy instruction including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary.
The so-called “science of reading” favored by LAUSD and many other districts today contrasts with the “whole language” theory once practiced by many schools, which emphasized learning to read through using visual cues and words that the student already knows. , instead of decoding the sounds of their letters.
“There will be a number of reading series, all of which meet the criteria, and then principals and their school councils will have the flexibility to adopt a series that meets the criteria for their own school,” Carvalho said.
Adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction will ensure consistency among schools and strengthen the education of transfer students in a district with large numbers of transient children, Carvalho argued.
Four decades of research show that the science of reading works, Carvalho said, while more recent studies show it can increase literacy rates for struggling students and reverse the decline in pandemic learning loss.
A recent study conducted by researchers at Stanford University found that test scores at 66 of California’s lowest-performing schools jumped after teachers adopted approaches that aligned with the science of reading.
Students in several other states have already exceeded pre-pandemic literacy levels using a curriculum with explicit phonics instruction, according to an analysis of test score data from Brown University.
Carvalho said Los Angeles schools that have already started using the district’s approved literacy materials and teaching methods have embraced the changes and are beginning to show some academic progress.
Students at Esperanza Elementary School in Westlake have made significant gains on reading assessments after adopting phonics-based teaching materials and methods promoted by the district from Core Knowledge Language Arts, said Principal Brad Rumble.
According to Rumble, less than half of the school’s first-graders met reading standards before the rollout of phonics-based lessons began in 2021, but 65% met standards this year. Likewise, the principal said, second-graders’ grade-level reading increased from 39% to 61%.
“We start with the sounds, and then we move on to more complex skills like decoding and facial recognition,” Rumble explains. “We don’t just forget what we’ve learned.”
Students at the school work on developing vocabulary and understanding language structure so that they become fluent readers by third grade, Rumble said, “and then those fluent readers understand what they read.”
Core Knowledge Language Arts helps teachers at Esperanza Elementary build systematic reading lessons, Rumble said. The gains students at his school are making point to the direction Carvalho wants the rest of the district to go.
With large numbers of students living in poverty, and large populations of homeless children and immigrant families, Los Angeles Unified faces special challenges in reading instruction.
The Families in Schools report found that only 15% of parents knew what their school’s reading curriculum was, while only about half said they had the tools to help their child learn to read.
Only 40% of students in Los Angeles can read at grade level by third grade, the report notes, while only 9% of English learners are meeting standards. By eighth grade, less than 1% of English learners met standards.
The report praised LAUSD’s new efforts to educate teachers in the science of reading and instruct parents to teach literacy at home, but said “a greater long-term commitment is needed” to build on the recent, slight gains in test scores.
The group’s CEO, Yolie Flores, a former vice president of the LAUSD Board of Education, said the district can do better.
“Families understand that if their children can’t read, it’s game over,” Flores said. “This is why we urge Superintendent Carvalho and the LAUSD Board of Education to deepen their efforts.”
Flores said Carvalho’s pledge to put the science of reading in every elementary school in Los Angeles is a step in the right direction. The district must now ensure the new lessons are implemented, she said.
“We can’t keep throwing the proverbial can away,” Flores said.
Carvalho said he has heard few complaints about the program so far, although some concerns have been raised by members of the English-language learning community, he said, with what could be seen as a one-size-fits-all approach to one-size-fits-all curricula.
The local teachers union, he said, has not registered any opposition to the project. United Teachers Los Angeles did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
While other states have had success with legislative mandates for evidence-based reading instruction, California lawmakers dropped a bill after the state’s largest teachers union opposed it.
In a letter opposing the legislation, the California Teachers Association said the bill would duplicate current literacy programs and limit teachers’ discretion in serving diverse student populations, including English learners.
In addition, advocates for English learners also sent letters to lawmakers opposing the bill, saying the state needs a plan that “centrally addresses” the needs of bilingual students.
California Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, a Democrat and teacher who authored the bill, said her own time in the classroom inspired her belief in phonics-based education.
“For me, it’s not a one size fits all approach,” Rubio said. “The science of reading takes into account research into how children best learn to read. When I was a teacher, we set goals and used the data to inform our teaching.”
Carvalho, who supported Rubio’s bill, said the results of reading assessments taken by LA Unified students this spring will help determine whether the district’s rollout of evidence-based reading instruction is working.
Regardless, the superintendent is confident in the district’s new approach to literacy education. “I really believe that the basic principles of reading education and philosophy should be rooted in the science of reading,” Carvalho said.
