Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to get the latest news about the city’s public school system delivered to your inbox.
New Jersey’s new, first-of-its-kind literacy plan aims to boost early reading skills among young learners, but advocates worry schools won’t be ready to roll it out this fall.
The statewide effort, launched under four bills signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in August 2024, aims to refine foundational literacy practices in schools based on research in reading and learning.
The bills created the New Jersey Literacy Framework and called on school districts to implement literacy screenings for students in K-3, create reading intervention plans, and start new training on reading instruction for pre-K-6 staff starting this upcoming school year. The set of bills also established the Office of Learning Equity and Academic Recovery, or LEAR, in the state’s Education Department, which will oversee the new literacy initiatives.
But advocates like JerseyCAN, who have been sounding the alarm about low reading scores, say they fear school districts may not have the bandwidth to review, compare, and select literacy screeners or implement new professional development on day one next school year.
“We have to make sure that these [school districts] have what they need, because they are implementers. They’re on the front lines,” said Paula White, executive director of JerseyCAN.
Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz, who represents Essex County, introduced the legislation last year after literacy rates dwindled following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In New Jersey, only 44% of third graders reached proficiency levels in English language arts in the spring 2024 statewide assessment, compared with 50% before the pandemic hit. In Newark, the third grade English language arts proficiency rate remained the lowest of any grade for a third year in a row last spring, but higher than the 2023 rate of 19%.
Third grade is a critical time for reading in a child’s development, experts say, and reading proficiency at that grade level can predict what a student’s reading levels will be in eighth grade and beyond.
The New Jersey Department of Education did not respond to questions about the state’s process to implement the new literacy plan next school year or their measures of success.
What is the New Jersey Literacy Framework?
The momentum to revamp literacy instruction has grown steadily in the past few years. New Jersey is among the last states to enact such policies, according to the Shaker Institute’s 2023 survey of state reading legislation in the U.S. New Jersey, Hawaii, New Hampshire, West Virginia, and New York were the only states that did not pass reading legislation between 2019 and 2022, according to the survey.
In the 2025-26 school year, traditional public school districts and charter school networks, which are privately run but publicly funded schools, will be mandated to conduct two literacy screenings annually for all K-3 students, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners, at the beginning and the middle of the school year. School districts can also consider a third screening for students during the school year. Schools must notify parents of the results within 30 days and create reading intervention plans.
School district leadership teams, which include administrators, directors of curriculum, instructional coaches, reading specialists, and teachers, should oversee screenings and analyze data to identify a student’s reading need and create interventions, according to state guidance released earlier this month.
The literacy screener will measure literacy skills on letter naming, phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, oral reading fluency, and comprehension. The state’s framework sets criteria in choosing a universal literacy screener but does not provide a list of screeners for school districts to choose from.
White, the executive director of JerseyCAN, said she worries about the ability of educators and the state’s 590 school districts to learn and implement the new mandates after summer break.
“Even if you have 300 districts that say, ‘got it, I don’t need your help, I can figure this out, I can find a literacy screener,’ you’re going to have another 150 that are going to be scrambling, and then you’re going to have another 100 that are completely lost,” White said.
The state’s framework has six goals to improve literacy outcomes among students: analyze data, coordinate resources, research best practices, provide district support, develop resources to support teachers and learning, and establish a working group on student literacy, which provided the state with recommendations on implementing the new initiatives in February.
Earlier this month, the state released the “New Jersey Literacy Framework: A Guide to Evidence-Based Literacy Practices & Universal Screeners,” an 81-page guide designed to support school districts in implementing the new initiatives and literacy instruction in grades K-3. The Education Department will release a second guide in the coming months, focusing on defining instructional materials and providing guidance to districts on selecting, adopting, and implementing the materials.
The framework also calls for professional development for pre-K-6 teachers, including educators who support students with disabilities and multilingual learners, library media specialists, reading and early literacy specialists, and speech-language specialists.
Before the state’s new literacy initiative, Newark leaders enacted plans to boost reading rates locally. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced a 10-point action plan in 2023 to promote reading among city children. Also in 2023, Newark Public Schools adopted a structured approach to teaching phonics called SIPPS, or Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words, implemented explicit writing strategies, and provided teachers with professional development rooted in the science of reading.
This month, the state Education Department also announced two grant opportunities totaling $5,250,000 to support school districts in implementing the new mandates.
The first is the FOCUS Grant, or Funding for Optimal Comprehensive Universal Screeners, to support high-quality literacy screening assessments and professional development and student support. All New Jersey school districts serving grades K-3 will be eligible for funding. The second is the BRIDGE Grant, or Building Responsive Instruction through Data-Guided Evaluation, a competitive grant supporting the use of screening data to implement evidence-based literacy instruction in K-3 classrooms.
Advocates say families, teachers are a crucial part of the plan
Despite her concerns, White, the executive director of JerseyCAN, praised the state’s new initiatives, but also emphasized the need to engage parents and provide educators with clear instructions.
In April, JerseyCAN released a report that details the state’s literacy crisis and outlines a series of specific proposals to address the issue statewide. The report also served as a call to action to turn the state’s literacy legislation into classroom results.
The report provided state leaders with four recommendations: provide ongoing, job-embedded literacy coaching for teachers; eliminate the “three-cueing” reading strategy, a practice of word-guessing from visual cues; require the development and implementation of customized reading plans for students with a reading deficiency; and require districts to provide families with read-at-home plans to support students identified with a reading deficiency.
“So being able to say, okay, yes, your child has a reading deficiency, but we’re gonna do something about it, and here’s what we’re doing, that’s important,” White added.
The need to engage parents in school districts like Newark, where youth literacy rates are low and many families may not speak English at home, is crucial, White added. In Newark Public Schools, the largest public school district in New Jersey, only 31% of students in grades 3-9 passed their state English language arts test in spring 2024.
White also highlighted the importance of job-embedded literacy coaching for teachers, which is considered “the gold standard” of professional development, she said. JerseyCAN recommends a multimillion-dollar state budget allocation to fund at least 10 literacy coaches statewide and provide annual allocations to fund more as the framework is implemented. The state legislature is in the process of approving the final budget, which must be signed by the governor by June 30.
It’s important to have a “common understanding” about the new requirements among all school districts, White said, adding that, statewide literacy coaches could help disseminate clear communication among “district leaders, curriculum coordinators” who “can actually turn to them to support their educators.”
Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
