“Reading Science” will not be required in schools in California, at least for now

The bill, which can reshape literacy education in California elementary schools, clear a major obstacle in the legislature this week after the duels have made a compromise that provides funding for sound -based instructions but stops demanding it.

The compromise between the advocates of the English language trainees and those who support the so -called Science of Reading approach or “evidence -based” provides funding and support for sound focused on sound but does not require schools or teachers to participate.

However the legislative language that was added to existing billIt is an important cornerstone in the struggle of how schools teach children to read. For years, the arguments for phonika have invested the progress of the literacy policy, even when the results of reading across the country remain stubbornly low.

“It is exciting for California. A lot of work has come into this and shows that opposite countries can gather and find solutions,” says Marshall here, director of Edvoice, a non -profit purpose for education. “This will be a really good thing for the children in California.”

The bill sponsored by the chairman of the Assembly Robert Rivas, the Assembly Blanca Rubio, a Democrat of West Coveno, and the associate Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, requires the state to provide training for teachers and study materials centered on Literacy instruction focused on soundwhich includes a dictionary, understanding, ability to sound words and other foundations of literacy. Materials and training must also deal with the specific needs of the English trainees, which make up about 18% of 5.8 million students from the country’s K-12.

“We acknowledge the role of the legislature in offering decisions to improve literacy, which raises the unique needs of multilingual students and worship their home languages ​​and cultures – which is why we are proud to support the AB 1454,” Martha Hernandes, director of the Californians, a group of English -speaking, said in a statement.

Here he said he was confident that most schools would choose to use new study materials and send their teachers to learn the entrances to the teaching of Phoninic because they would want to take advantage of funding. He said he was not too evident from the fact that the material was not required.

Previous opposition

Previous bills to require a phonika-based approach have died, partly because not everyone agrees that phonics is the best way to learn students whose first language is not English. The Hernandez Group claims that these students need an approach that gives the same weight to the dictionary and the development of the oral language in addition to phonika.

The California Association of Teachers, the largest teaching union in the country, is fighting for reading instructions in the past, saying that teachers – not legislators – are in the best position to evaluate the needs of individual students and need maximum flexibility in the classroom. The Union has so far been neutral under this bill.

Research Most students have shown to learn to read explicitly instruction focused on sounding words, along with the vocabulary and understanding lessons. Another major approach emphasizes the reading of vision, in which students remember whole words and make sense together through context.

In recent years, nearly 40 states have required a reader -based reading instructions. Some schools in California, including Los Angeles Unified, the largest area in the state, already use curricula that focus on phonika. But About 80% of the areas do notAccording to studies by the California Reading Coalition, a literacy advocacy group.

Standed results to read

Reading results in California constantly climbed before the pandemic, but fell during distance learning and since then stoppedS Almost 60% of third -graders did not read at the class last year, with some student groups, including black and low -income students, behind even more. Up to the fourth grade, students should read well enough to easily understand the content, according to state literacy standards.

The bill scheduled for hearing today was originally introduced in February, but its main focus was on heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems at school. Advocates applied to the literacy component this week, which is detailed in Account analysis And it will probably be included in the account language later this week. He replaces a previous bill, also sponsored by Rubio, who died last week.

As the bill is sponsored by the installation speaker, the installation is expected to pass. Any bill that costs money can be faced with a difficult battle in the current economic climate, but governor Gavin Newo supports literacy efforts in the past.