Kansas is undertaking a major effort to improve student reading skills, with a special focus on the early years and students with characteristics of dyslexia.  

Initiatives include a universal screening of students to identify reading difficulties, retraining teachers, directing schools to use structured literacy to teach reading skills, and working with colleges to prepare new teachers to use evidence-based practices that align with research in the science of reading.  

These efforts are based on concerns that too many students fail to learn to read effectively, which is likely to cause academic difficulties. Reading difficulties can make it harder to graduate high school and complete postsecondary programs or function effectively in many jobs, reducing income and economic security. It can also affect self-esteem, mental health and behavior and social isolation.  

Education leaders say it is vital for all parts of the system to work together to improve reading instruction. “I think the only way things are going to change is if we really make a concerted effort to get everybody from preschool through 16 (four-year colleges) on the same page about teaching reading,” said Dr. Laurie Curtis, who has spent a little over a year as the State Department of Education’s Early Literacy/Dyslexia Program manager. “There is also now a lot of literacy and language research coming out about birth to age five, so this has to involve preschool as well.”  

Development of Current Efforts  

Many of the current initiatives grew out of the work of a Legislative Task Force on Dyslexia created by the 2018 Kansas Legislature to make recommendations regarding the use of evidence-based practices for students with dyslexia.  

The task force included elected state officials, K-12 and higher education educators, parents and service providers. Its recommendations, found in this report, focused on four areas:  

1. Pre-service: how students in college studying education should be trained to teach reading.  

2. Professional Learning: how to help teachers already in the school system help students with dyslexia.  

3. Screening and Evaluation: how to identify and assist students with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.  

4. Evidence-based Reading Practices: how districts should teach reading and help students with characteristics of dyslexia; supported by a “Dyslexia Handbook” for Kansas schools and a dyslexia coordinator within the Kansas State Department of Education.  

Most of these recommendations were aimed at the State Board of Education and Department of Education, which released a “K-12 Reading Initiatives Rollout” outlining a series of steps and timelines, adopted the Dyslexia Handbook, and provided a webpage of resources about early literacy and dyslexia.  

In addition, KSDE has allocated $15 million from federal ESSER funds for COVID-19 relief available to the state agency to provide a free professional learning course for instructors of reading, spelling, and related skills called LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling). The program is currently free to any licensed educator who works in a KSDE-accredited public or private elementary school providing reading instruction to students at any grade level and to higher education faculty who teach literacy courses in Kansas teacher preparation programs. The use of federal ESSER aid is based on the concern that the shift to emergency remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the instruction of foundational literacy skills of young students in Kansas and led to potential learning loss.  

Finally, the 2022 Legislature passed the Every Child Can Read Act as part of a major school funding and policy bill. To promote grade level proficiency in reading, especially by third grade, it directs each local school board to measure student achievement through state assessments and other screening and assessment tools; provide targeted and tier interventions for students with deficiencies; and ensure that third-grade teachers communicate with parents on their student’s reading skills and recommended interventions. It also requires districts to report on student progress to KSDE, which shall annually report to the Legislature.  

Causes for Concern  

According to the KSDE Dyslexia Handbook, 15-20% of the population have characteristics of dyslexia, such as inaccurate or slow reading, poor spelling, poor writing or mixing up similar words. These issues may worsen as children age and reading expectations become more complex. However, not all students who have difficulties with these skills have dyslexia. Formal testing of reading, language and writing skills is the only way to confirm a diagnosis of suspected dyslexia.  

There is evidence that reading skills have been declining in Kansas. In 2015, about one in five students (21.2%) at all grade levels scored at Level 1, or “Limited” on the state English Language Arts assessment. In 2022, two years after the COVID pandemic, over one in three (34.9%) scored at Limited. The percentage of students scoring at Level 3, considered “Effective” ability for postsecondary readiness, has dropped. Kansas results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the ACT college readiness test have also declined. This decline began before the COVID pandemic and has continued since then.  

There is a strong correlation between poverty and academic achievement: Low-income students, on average, have lower test scores and graduation rates than high-income students, which means low-income students are less likely to reach educational levels as adults, which results in higher incomes. This means their children will be more likely to lag educationally and continue to be economically disadvantaged.  

Improving Reading Proficiency  

Many reasons are proposed for the decline in academic test scores in Kansas and nationally (and in Kansas private schools). Many factors are outside the school’s control, like family poverty and childhood mental health issues. But advocates for the state’s reading initiatives say one thing schools CAN control is how they teach reading – and in many cases, it has not been taught effectively, especially for children with dyslexia. The state’s reading initiatives are working to change that.  

The “science of reading” supports all these initiatives, which Curtis says is “a body of knowledge informed by evidence about how the brain learns to read, and how instruction affects that process.” A key part of that research is the critical importance of phonics – making the connection between letters of the alphabet in written words and the sounds those letters make in spoken language. Curtis says there have been decades of debate over how to teach reading, and the evidence is clear that emphasizing phonics is an important part of early literacy acquisition, especially for students with characteristics of dyslexia.   

As a former reading teacher and college professor of education, Curtis says she understands why other approaches have been used but says the evidence of what works is strong. “No teacher sets out to do less than their very best to teach. But I think people can have trouble separating what we think is working from what the scientific evidence says. We now have brain imaging, so we can look at what a brain is doing while students are reading to really understand that mental circuit better and understand what kind of teaching will improve the ability for a child to decode written words.”  

Curtis noted that many teachers had yet to be exposed to the science of reading evidence. The state plan calls for all elementary, early childhood, high incidence special education for K-12, and grades 5-12 English Language Arts teachers, reading specialists and school psychologists to receive an initial 6 hours of training followed by district-determined annual structured literacy training. It is highly recommended that paraeducators also receive training. School districts can incorporate this training into ongoing professional development activities.  

Structured literacy is explained in the Dyslexia Handbook. Curtis described it in a presentation to the State Board in January as “a model of instruction that research has found can help all students and is critical for students who struggle in learning to map print to language. It is explicit, systematic and cumulative and cannot be addressed by just adding phonics to what you are already doing. It includes multiple levels of language learning.”  

While structured literacy is supposed to be the core method of teaching students to read, the state plan has two other components.  

First is regular screening of all students three times a year with a focus on specific reading skills. This screening continues through all grades to identify students who may develop difficulty reading as materials become more complex. According to the Handbook, screening measures are usually brief assessments of skills that predict a later outcome. Screening should quickly differentiate students into groups- those who appear not to have a risk for future reading difficulty and those who show risk and need additional diagnostic assessment leading to possible intervention.  

Second, when screeners determine that a student needs intervention, under the Kansas Education System Accreditation (KESA) model, districts are supposed to implement a tiered instructional system, often called Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). Under the system, “Tier 1,” or core instruction, such as the structured literacy approach to reading, is provided to all students. Based on screenings or other assessment data, some students will need additional intervention at Tier 2, or even more intensive help at Tier 3. The Dyslexia Handbook says this additional intervention instruction should be through small groups three to five times per week for 30-60 minutes per day, depending on the building schedule, student age, and student needs intensity.  

Curtis says when all parts of the plan work, it should help all students. “What I am hopeful about is that we have assessments to identify kids in our schools and we're giving teachers the knowledge of what to do with that data, to know how to intervene, when necessary, but also more importantly, a clearer focus on what needs to happen in every classroom every day for their core instruction.”  

What Can School Leaders Do to Help?  

The state has a plan in place, but it will be up to local leaders and educators to make it work.  

“For school boards, it’s making sure you have plans in place so that teachers have the professional knowledge to teach with that model, and they have materials aligned to teaching with that model,” said Curtis. “That's where things are going to change. And our partners in higher education will be making sure new teachers understand the tenants of structured literacy and understand how to look at data.”  

The state supports improved reading instruction by funding Curtis’s position, making on-line training and curriculum materials available at no cost, helping fund the Fastbridge screening program, and providing training and assistance to districts. More extensive literacy training is provided through the LETRS program funded by state ESSER funding. Many districts use their own ESSER funds or increased state funding under the Gannon school finance plan for training and instruction.  

However, there are still costs to districts, such as release time and substitutes for teachers receiving professional development, for staffing to provide individualized time for interventions and possible significant costs for textbooks and other curriculum materials. KSDE’s literacy and dyslexia resources can be used to supplement existing curriculum materials.  

Teachers and reading specialists in schools recognized for improvement in an academic performance report that the structured literacy approach differs from what many teachers were used to but said they were seeing positive results based on the new research and evidence. They stressed the importance of having support from their administration to make these changes.