JerseyCAN acknowledges its success pushing the State Legislature to pass two bills, sponsored by Sen. Teresa Ruiz and signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, that require school districts to address our low rate of reading proficiency, currently 44% for third graders. But no one at the non-profit that lobbies for all NJ students to have access to high-performing schools is celebrating quite yet. Why? The new laws alone won’t get New Jersey students where they need to be given the potential gap between legislation and implementation. This is why JerseyCAN just published “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Leveraging Literacy from Policy to Practice in New Jersey.”

In other words, passing laws is a necessary first step. Yet, in a state that places such importance on local control, making real changes in the way we teach children to read is a big lift. We’re not Mississippi, now heralded for the “miracle” of boosting student literacy, which employs top-down mandates like having all teacher candidates applying for initial elementary education licensure to pass a foundational reading test; requiring all third-graders who can’t proficiently to repeat the year if interventions haven’t worked; ordering the Mississippi Department of Education to identify schools with the lowest third grade reading scores; and providing literacy coaches to improve teachers’ reading instruction.

That’s just not how New Jersey rolls.

Therefore,  JerseyCAN’s new report lays out four “commitments” we all must make in our laissez-faire state to increase student literacy. While it’s a step too far to legislate these changes, they can be fulfilled through buy-in from districts and directives from the State Department of Education.

These four commitments are:

• Providing ongoing, job-embedded literacy coaching for teachers.
•  Eliminating the use of the meaning, syntax, visual (“MSV”) three-cueing reading strategy. 
• Requiring the development of individual reading plans to be implemented at school for students identified with a reading deficiency.
•  Requiring districts to provide parents with clear, accessible data-informed plans to be implemented at home for students identified with a reading deficiency.

In a recent interview, JerseyCAN Executive Director Paula White explained that only through a concerted and unified effort to effect these commitments will the rubber hit the road. We need to change not only policy but practice.

Let’s look at each commitment.

• Provide ongoing, job-embedded literacy coaching for teachers.

White recommends Gov. Murphy and the State Legislature include in the 2025-2026 state budget money for ten literacy coaches to circulate among school districts  and embed science-based reading instruction directly into classrooms. This would cost about $3 million. “Teaching is so solitary,” she explains, “in a classroom by yourself as the only instructional professional.” Currently professional development is “drive-by,” a couple of hours spent listening to a lecturer. The new office established by the legislation—Learning Executive and Academic Recovery Office (LEAR) — will provide an organizational home for coaches.

And that’s the bare minimum, says White. Ideally, the state would pay for up to 30 coaches, which would cost between $5 and $10 million. She notes that California has budgeted $235 million “for local educational agencies to develop school literacy programs” and  Georgia  is spending$18 million for 131 coaches. In Mississippi, regarded as the national model for raising literacy rates, coaches spend two to three days a week in a school for an entire school year, observing, training, and providing feedback. (Immediately following the release of JerseyCan’s new report, the State DOE issued a job posting for a single instructional coach.)

•  Eliminate the use of the meaning, syntax, visual (“MSV”) three-cueing reading strategy. 

It seems simple: teachers should stop urging students to use the widely-discredited “three-cueing,” where students are told to “guess” the word through context and pictures instead of sounding it out phonetically, an approach that is neurologically and developmentally ineffective. As of February 16 states have banned three-cueing but this may be a bridge too far for the NJ state Legislature even though, back in 2000, the National Reading Panel found that explicit, systematic, cumulative instruction in five essential elements ( phonemic awareness; phonics; vocabulary; fluency; and comprehension) is key to children’s reading success.  

White suggests, in lieu of legislation, the State Department of Education should issue a resolution or regulation stating school districts should stop using three-cueing. While it doesn’t have the force of law, once the coaching gets underway teachers will be sold. “They’ll see the light on their students’ faces when they use structured literacy,” she explains.

• Require the development and implementation of individualized and customized reading plans for students with reading deficiencies.

This is not special education: It is providing the support some unclassified students need to fill in gaps as they acquire reading skills, with the degree of support divided into three tiers. The new report gives the example of a sixth-grader struggling with one of NJ’s learning standards, “Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., audience, auditory, audible).” Her teacher then creates a customized plan that draws on word maps and drawing exercises to master this particular standard.

•  Require districts to provide parents with clear, accessible data-informed plans to be implemented at home for students identified with a reading deficiency.

This is essential because, says White, without clear information parents won’t be able to support their children at home. The new legislation requires districts to use universal screeners twice a year for all kindergarten-third graders, quick and painless evaluations that allow teachers to check in on skill development. But that’s not enough. Instead, parents must be notified not in a passive way but with a read-at-home program that “prioritizes family engagement.”

(The New Jersey Working Group on Student Literacy suggested the department provide a clear list of universal screening assessments that meet the criteria to make it easier for school districts to pick one. The state did not include a list in its official recommendations.)

“We can’t just stop at legislation,” said White. “If we don’t tackle literacy, if we don’t get it right, our children won’t be able to develop skills in math, science, history. We have to do right by the largest number of children because we believe in their capacity. Now it’s on us adults to provide the baseline.”