On Oct. 9, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill, called Assembly Bill 1454, mandating K-12 teachers across the state are to bring phonic-based teaching tactics back into schools.
By approving AB 1454, the state is now on a five-year plan that will help improve the quality of teaching and learning by the use of phonics. Phonics is the relationship between letters and having students sound them out in each word.
This bill introduction will include new teaching materials like textbooks and workbooks, education training for teachers and information for principals on the “science of reading”, which helps focus on vocabulary.
“Sight words” are taught repeatedly to help the child understand the words’ meaning just by seeing it. This includes basic words like “see”, “and” and “what”. While this type of teaching has been introduced in recent years, it hasn’t always proved itself as effective.
In June, Newsom introduced his Golden State Literacy Plan, which was a step forward into helping students find fun within reading and English Language Arts. While California has always ranked high in academic prowess within the past decade, the pandemic put everyone at a halt.
Reading levels only very slightly decreased between 2019 and 2022, but quickly bounced back within the years after as students were allowed back to in-person learning in K-12 schools. While California didn’t feel much of the academic effects of the pandemic, the United States as a whole declined in reading and math levels.
In the Literacy Plan document, Governor Newsom informs residents that California continues to be one of the top states in terms of reading capabilities. Between 2011 and 2022, the state’s eighth grade reading levels have improved more than any other state, with the 4th grade reading levels also having a significant rise.
This cannot be said for the entirety of the nation as a whole, where reading levels have decreased by four to five points from ages 9-13, which is the lowest it has been in decades. Other states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, saw improvements in levels after implementing phonics-based reading.
In a quote to CalMatters from Marshall Tuck, the chief executive of the advocacy group EdVoice, says “California has one of the best frameworks in the country right now. We worked very hard on this and we’re thrilled to get to this point. Now we just have to see it through.”
Phonics has always been a fundamental part of teaching ELA and has never been removed per se, but its importance has been diminished over the years and starting in the late 1990s. As another form of phonics, called whole language, was being used to teach spelling and reading.
This is when “sight words” become prominent. These words are meant to be understood as soon as they are recognized, without having to sound them out. Those who opposed sight words argued that students needed to learn the relationship between letters to be able to sound them out and understand the word they are saying.
According to AP News, a 2000 government-formed National Reading Panel released its findings that whole language learning was causing more exhaustion in students than beneficial learning. Then schools leaned on “balanced learning”. Its main goal was to get kids reading as many books as possible, not always proving beneficial when phonics became slowly diminished again at the end of the pandemic.
This shift in teaching is what starts to drop the United States’ levels as a whole. That is when states start looking internally to find a solution to the problem,
When curriculums are always looking for improvements, states are going to have their children’s best interest at the forefront. California will continue to do so, improving for the betterment of the state’s children and their education.
