From Slogans to Scores

Let's be honest: the "science of reading" has turned into a Rorschach test. States passed sweeping laws. Districts bought shiny new curricula. Schools sat through professional development sessions with Scarborough's Rope slides and checklists. But kids don't learn to read because adults attended workshops. They learn when three boring things line up—materials, time, and feedback—and stay aligned long enough to show growth.

The next phase of this so-called revolution has to be about execution, not slogans.

The job is to set the rules of the game and actually enforce them. That starts with defining the "science of reading" narrowly enough to mean something. If everything aligns, nothing does. States should publish a short, non-negotiable specification: core K–2 programs must include explicit, systematic phonics with cumulative review; decodables that match taught patterns; daily phonemic awareness; and language comprehension built through content-rich knowledge units. Screening should be curriculum-agnostic, skill-specific, and administered three times a year.

Funding should flow to muscle, not meetings. States should tie dollars to two concrete artifacts: protected literacy schedules by grade level, and simple fidelity logs—one page, yes/no boxes on key routines. Forget glossy reports; show proof that minutes and materials match the mandate.

Data policy should follow a "verify, then trust" model. States should collect de-identified benchmark data statewide each fall, winter, and spring, and publicly report growth—not just proficiency. Progress, not posture, should drive recognition.

Teacher-preparation programs also need accountability with teeth. If graduates can't pass a rigorous reading licensure test, the program loses approval. Publish pass rates publicly. Nothing motivates reform faster than daylight.

Finally, guardrail the AI hype. Approve only tools that align to taught phonics patterns, expose skill-level data, and have evidence within two years of rollout. No proof, no funding.

The focus should shift to choosing well, scheduling hard, and coaching forever. Procurement should happen through results, not vibes. Run short pilot comparisons between two programs in matched schools and choose based on effect size and usability, not vendor branding.

Schedules are destiny. Lock daily time blocks: kindergarten and first grade get 120 minutes of literacy, with at least forty-five minutes of foundational skills, thirty to forty-five minutes of knowledge building, and twenty to thirty minutes of read-alouds. Second grade gets ninety to 120 minutes with heavier fluency work. Tier 2 intervention should be thirty to forty-five minutes daily, with no more than four students per group. Principals should be evaluated on adherence, not intention.

Coaching has to be serious and sustained. One coach for roughly every twenty teachers, using a weekly cycle: plan, model, co-teach, observe, feedback, and adjust. Coaches should be measured by teacher skill growth and student outcomes, not the number of workshops delivered.

Data should be used without drowning in it. Districts should run three benchmark windows per year and biweekly progress checks for intervention students. After each window, hold short grade-level huddles to review names, data, and next steps. If a student shows no progress after eight weeks, change the intervention, not the presentation slide.

District offices should also monitor fidelity with short rubrics. Schools that fall behind get extra coaching and coverage support, not reprimands. But if non-adherence persists, the district temporarily takes control of scheduling. It sounds heavy-handed, but it's far kinder than letting kids fail to read.

The work becomes deeply practical: protect the minutes, teach the routines, and own the bottom quintile. The literacy block must be sacred—no assemblies, no test rallies, no interruptions. Substitutes should have a one-page plan with oral drills, review, new pattern introduction, dictation, decodable reading, and a knowledge-building read-aloud.

The micro-routines matter most. Ten minutes of brisk, corrective phonemic awareness every day. Phonics lessons that teach, review, write, and read the same pattern within a single session. Daily fluency practice—one-minute oral reads with charted words correct per minute. Content-based units in history and science that build background knowledge for comprehension.

Each grade should keep a live roster of the lowest twenty percent of readers. Every name gets an assigned adult, an intervention plan, and a simple traffic-light color: green, yellow, or red. The roster gets reviewed weekly. Students move off the list only when they hit skill benchmarks, not when adults "feel good."

AI tools can help, but only as force multipliers. Use speech-recognition for fluency practice, auto-scored probes for faster feedback, and generative tools to create decodables that match the phonics sequence. But the adult remains the diagnostician. The AI assists; it doesn't replace.

Stop worshipping annual proficiency charts and start tracking growth. Measure average gains from fall to spring in phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency. Monitor Tier 2 dosage delivered versus planned. Track the percent of students meeting adequate growth targets by grade and subgroup. At the school level, check how many students are reading aligned decodables within six weeks of each unit. When those numbers stagnate, fix the schedule or staffing—not the narrative.

The truth is, the real barrier isn't belief—it's time. Teachers aren't resistant to research; they're overloaded with noise. Reforms stall because we keep taxing teacher attention without buying teacher time. The fix is straightforward: pay for coverage so teachers can be coached during their actual block, stop piling on conflicting initiatives, and trade one more PD day for one more coach.

The reading crisis isn't mysterious. Kids need tightly sequenced instruction, protected time, and fast feedback. States build the guardrails, districts lock the schedules and coach, schools execute the routines and own their bottom quintile. Do those things faithfully for two years and scores move. Keep doing "alignment PowerPoints," and we'll keep getting slogans with flat lines.

This moment calls for proof, not posture. Let's finally rebuild reading instruction to deliver both.

Daniel Whitlock is the Technology Innovation Lead at Navigator Schools in California, where he supports educators in building AI-driven tools to reduce friction and free up time for teaching.