Reading Advocates Celebrate the Passage of Literacy Bill

A class at Vergennes Union Elementary School Credit: File: Daria Bishop

Until the last day of the legislative session, it was unclear whether S.204 — a bill aimed at strengthening literacy instruction in Vermont schools — was going to pass. Ultimately, lawmakers in each chamber reached consensus, and the bill made it across the finish line before the legislature recessed in the wee hours of May 11.

The measure now awaits the governor’s signature. It calls for schools to screen all students in kindergarten through third grade for reading deficits using an assessment tool known as a universal screener. Schools must provide supplementary instruction to struggling students and monitor their progress. Each year, districts must report data to the Agency of Education about the number and percentage of students in kindergarten through third grade who are below proficiency.

The bill requires school districts to train early elementary teachers and administrators to use reading screening assessments and on “evidence-based, effective, explicit, systematic” instruction that addresses the five pillars of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

One much-debated part of the bill that ultimately didn’t make it into the final version was a ban on “three-cueing.” It’s a commonplace reading strategy, now widely thought to be ineffective, that encourages students to figure out words based on picture or context clues rather than by sounding out letters. Several legislators voiced discomfort with mandating instructional strategies for teachers, and the ban was ultimately struck from the bill.

Educators and parents who have seen firsthand the ways Vermont has failed to teach some students to read hailed the legislation as a victory.

In an October 2023 cover story, Seven Days wrote about declining reading scores among Vermont students, which some attribute to the embrace of a teaching model called balanced literacy that became popular in the 1990s.

Some Vermont teachers have recently returned to using structured literacy — and have seen positive results. The method provides students explicit, step-by-step instruction in phonemic awareness, the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and in phonics, the ability to connect those sounds to letters.

A group of advocates for structured literacy, led by Barre reading teacher Dorinne Dorfman, spent months contacting legislators to urge them to pass S.204. In January, Dorfman, a former elementary and high school principal, testified before the Senate Education Committee.

“I urge you to go into any school and experience what most of our teachers are enduring every day,” Dorfman told the legislators. “Come in and watch children try to write a complete sentence, try to spell a multisyllabic word. Go to any grade level. Look at our students’ handwriting, their keyboarding skills, their grammar and mechanics. Ask them to read aloud to you, to spell common words and academic vocabulary, and you will feel the urgency for change that I’m talking about.”

Bud Meyers, who served as deputy education secretary in the early 2000s and as director of the University of Vermont’s James M. Jeffords Center for Policy Research, was also among those who lobbied for the bill. Of particular concern to Meyers is the growing lack of proficiency in reading among low-income students and those with disabilities. He called the bill “a step in the right direction” and a sign that the state is committed to improving literacy outcomes for all students, especially its most vulnerable.

On Sunday, around 20 educators and parents who advocated for the bill gathered at Meyers’ home in Colchester to toast its passage with a potluck brunch, plus a champagne and sparkling apple cider toast. Some attendees were parents who fought for years to get their dyslexic children effective literacy instruction, eventually turning to tutoring or private schools. Others were teachers and administrators who said they knew that Vermont could do better when it comes to teaching all children to read. In an email after the gathering, Dorfman thanked the group for their advocacy and signaled there was still more to be done to ensure the legislation was implemented effectively. “We have work ahead to make sure Vermont gets this right in every school, in every classroom, in every reading service, for every child,” she wrote.