Just over a year has passed since Ohio’s science of reading initiative was signed into law. Under these new provisions, all public elementary schools must align their literacy instruction to the science of reading. This evidence-based approach emphasizes phonics along with vocabulary- and knowledge-rich content to support students’ reading comprehension. Schools that weren’t already doing this must transition to the science of reading during the upcoming school year, and $168 million in state funding is being spent to support these changes.
Putting these reforms into law was a necessary first step. But as we at Fordham have stressed, it won’t work without faithful and rigorous implementation, both at the state level (through the work of state agencies) and local level (under district and school leadership). How these key players handle the Science of Reading provisions will determine how effectively they are put into practice.
As detailed in my recent report, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) has done a fine job with a critical early implementation step—creating a solid list of fifteen core reading curricula from which elementary schools may choose. But that’s just a start. Several other important aspects of implementation are also underway, so as to get the literacy initiative off to a strong start. Here are three.
Approving reading intervention programs
Promoting high-quality core curricula is crucial, as these programs guide the reading instruction that all students receive. But another vital element of the initiative is ensuring that interventions intended to help struggling readers are also aligned to the science of reading. To this end, the legislature wisely tasked DEW with vetting and approving intervention programs, much as it did for core curricula.
By the end of July, the department had approved sixty intervention programs. This is far more than the fifteen approved core curricula, but the lengthier list likely reflects the greater number of intervention programs available, as well as the fact that scientifically-based interventions apply to all grade levels, not just the early elementary grades. Among the approved interventions are two endorsed by the National Council on Teacher Quality in a Fordham report last year (UFLI Foundations and SIPPS). Wisely, DEW did not approve interventions that use disproven, non-scientific methods (e.g., Reading Recovery and Leveled Literacy Intervention).
Launching a professional development (PD) course
In addition to overhauling curricula, lawmakers recognized the need to bolster educators’ capacity to apply the science of reading. By July 2025, all school administrators and teachers (grades K–12), as well as specific support staff, must complete a state-designed course in the science of reading unless they have already received comparable training (e.g., LETRS or Wilson Language Training). To help develop the course, DEW partnered with Keys to Literacy, a respected national group with experience providing literacy guidance for educators in Colorado and Massachusetts.
The new online course, which is already available and consists of roughly twenty hours of training,[1] includes a broad overview of the science of reading, along with targeted modules that cover areas like instruction in phonics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. Course completion requires passing a post-test, which should encourage closer attention to and engagement with the content. Teachers and support staff receive state-funded stipends when they finish the course.
The new statewide course should serve as an excellent introduction to the science of reading, but some educators will want or need more. Many Ohio schools—perhaps supported by additional state investments—will need to further boost their efforts to strengthen educators’ proficiency in this realm via curriculum-specific support or promoting effective teacher collaboration.
Increasing funding for teacher-prep audits
Another essential piece of the literacy puzzle is ensuring that the state’s colleges of education thoroughly prepare prospective teachers in the science of reading. As analyses from NCTQ indicate, many teacher-prep programs—in Ohio and nationally—have not been doing this well. To improve teacher preparation, lawmakers required colleges to align their programs with the science of reading. They assigned the Ohio Department of Higher Education the job of auditing the alignment of those programs, with reviews slated to begin in January 2025. But the legislature did not initially set aside sufficient funding for the task—just $150,000 to review more than fifty programs—but recently-passed legislation added $2 million to support this effort.
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All these steps—from vetting core literacy curricula to supporting teacher-prep audits—lay the groundwork for strong classroom implementation, while also signaling that state leaders are taking these reforms seriously and striving to ensure that the science of reading takes root across Ohio. Rigorous implementation is a heavy lift, but the payoff has the potential to be great: a more literate and well-prepared next generation of Ohio students.
[1] Teachers who have completed similar dyslexia training may take an abbreviated course; administrators are required to take a seven-hour course.
