Tennessee’s Literacy Success Act receives mostly positive initial review

Tennessee’s efforts to improve literacy received a mostly positive initial review by the state’s Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA).Governor Bill Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Literacy Success Act (LSA) in 2021’s Special Session on Education. The LSA seeks to ensure students in early grades are on track to become proficient readers by the end of 3rd grade. The legislation provides support and training for teachers around phonics-based reading instruction and establishes a reading screener to help parents and teachers identify and aid students who are struggling.The Comptroller’s Office is tasked by law to review the legislation every year.“TDOE (Tennessee Department of Education) and local districts and charter schools are implementing the major directives of the Literacy Success Act. A few items remain in progress. A small sample of districts and charter schools contacted by OREA suggested some improvements, but they were generally positive about implementation of the LSA’s requirements,” wrote the Comptroller’s Office in the report. 

Universal Reading Screener

The Literacy Success Act requires the use of universal reading screeners to ensure that K-3 students are learning the foundational literacy skills needed for reading and to identify struggling students who need help. A universal reading screener is a short, standardized assessment to check that students are on track in developing their early reading skills.Under the law, all districts and charter schools administer a state-approved universal reading screener to their K-3 students three times per year beginning in school year 2021-22. Schools are required to notify parents if the results from the reading screeners indicate their student has a significant reading deficiency.According to the report, all districts and charter schools have administered the screeners and submitted required data for the 2021/2022 school year.“Tennessee K-3 students gained the same, or more, foundational reading skills during the 2021-22 school year as students nationwide. The national norms for the approved screeners have an average range from the 40th to 59th percentile with the national average at the 50th percentile,” wrote the Comptroller’s Office.

Literacy Training for Teachers

The Literacy Success Act additionally requires the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to develop training courses on literacy skills instruction for both K-5 teachers and high school students in a teaching-as-a-profession career pathway. The act also requires all K-5 teachers to complete one literacy skills instruction course approved by TDOE by August 2023.The Tennessee Department of Education reported that a total of 25,749 licensed educators completed the Early Reading Training Course I as of August 22, 2022. Based on the passage rates of the educators who completed the course during the 2021 testing period, almost all educators (99.6 percent) passed the end-of-course assessment.  The Early Reading Training Course 1 is among the two courses approved to meet the law’s requirements.The Comptroller’s Offices additionally says it contacted administrators from a sample of school districts and charter schools in July and August and those administrators reported that their teachers were largely on track to meet the legislation’s training requirement by the deadline of August 2023.“TDOE has developed both the training course for teachers and the course for high school students interested in the teaching profession as required by the act, and indications are that K-5 teachers are making good progress in meeting the requirement to complete one literacy skills instruction course by the 2023 deadline,” said the Comptroller Office.

Additional Requirements

The Comptroller’s report additionally listed the following Literacy Success Act requirements as being implemented through August 2022.

• Although this was not a required submission year, 65 districts and public charters have submitted a revised Foundational Literacy Skills Plans since their initial submissions in 2021.
• TDOE has developed, and the State Board of Education has approved, new Educator Preparation Provider standards for instruction of K-3 teacher candidates and instructional leader candidates.
• All three required reports have been published.
• All contracts and interagency agreements used to procure goods and services under the Literacy Success Act were submitted as required to the General Assembly’s Fiscal Review Committee.

The Comptrollers report listed the following Literacy Success Act requirements as continuing or remaining.

• All active K-5 teachers must complete at least one foundational literacy skills course by August 2023. TDOE does not currently have the data in a format to report the number or percent of active K-5 classroom teachers who have completed at least one course. They expect the new Reading Research Center will be able to provide this data after data cleaning, matching, and analysis.
• As of July 2022, TDOE was in the development process for a Tennessee reading instruction test that will be provided at no cost to teacher and administrator candidates and Educator Preparation Providers.
• As of the fall 2022 semester, Educator Preparation Provider reading instruction is required to have a primary focus on foundational literacy skills, and courses and clinical experiences should be aligned with the state’s foundational literacy standards.
• The Literacy Success Act requirement for all districts and charter schools to use state-approved textbooks and instructional materials will be assessed in a separate Comptroller review to be completed by May 2023.

Reaction From Educators

As part of its report, the Comptroller’s Office contacted a small sample of school districts and charter schools to collect local feedback on the first year of the Literacy Success Act implementation.“Districts reported that staff have been positive about the foundational literacy training, that training had resulted in improved instruction, and/or that stipends have been an effective incentive for teachers to complete the training,” wrote the Comptroller’s Office in the report. “When asked about improvements they would like to see, a few districts suggested earlier determinations of required screener administration windows and earlier communication of those windows to districts. Others suggested that it would be helpful if they could pull lists of teachers that had completed the required foundational literacy training from the state’s COMPASS system so that they could more easily ensure compliance with the law’s training requirement.”