Georgia’s Literacy Initiative Shows Promising Results
In an effort to boost literacy rates, Georgia implemented a law two years ago that mandates the use of the “science of reading” in classrooms. The initiative has already shown notable improvements in some of the state’s lowest-performing schools.
House Bill 538, which saw overwhelming support in the Georgia legislature, tasked the state with revamping teacher education and creating new literacy assessments. The Georgia Department of Education took action last fall by deploying literacy coaches to 60 schools ranked in the bottom 5% for performance. As a result, the new reading test scores jumped by 15%, with kindergarten students showing the most significant progress, according to state data.
The legislation stipulates that all public schools must conduct on-site training for teachers, featuring model lessons and immediate instructional feedback. Additionally, it mandated that teachers instructing kindergarten through third grade complete literacy training by the start of this month. According to the education department, the initiative has reached 1,000 teachers and impacted the education of 18,000 students.
