WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — The fall marks the start of the second school year since Ohio mandated a shift toward phonics-based reading instruction, after years of districts implementing their own reading curriculum.
Prior to this shift, an Ohio Department of Education report pointed out that 39.9% of all Ohio third-grade students are not considered proficient in reading.
That prompted Gov. Mike DeWine to champion what educators call "the science of reading" to address the state's reading proficiency shortcomings, also known as an emphasis on phonics.
A phonics approach involves breaking down a word letter by letter, and a student sounding out the word.
Other methods can teach words as a whole, not individual letters, based on taking context clues, such as other words in a sentence or pictures, as a way to recognize and remember the word.
Watch News 5's original reporting in 2023, just weeks before Gov. DeWine's executive order:
RELATED: Is your child having trouble learning to read? Gov. DeWine pushes for more emphasis on phonics
Early results show promise
Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools, which began implementing phonics-based instruction several years ago, is now one of about 30 districts across the state receiving federal grant money to help underserved students learn to read.
Their grant, totaling $2.1 million ($1.2 million for grades K–5 and $829,144 for grades 6–8), is meant to support transformational improvements in literacy instruction and student achievement across the district, as well as address any achievement gaps.
To see a list of all the school districts to receive funding from this grant, click here.
The district has seen significant improvement in reading readiness among kindergarteners. Last year's kindergarten class went from 30% reading readiness at the beginning of the school year to 73% by the end.
"That's consequential movement for our kids," Dr. Patrick Ward, superintendent of Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools, said. "It allows us to target the intervention for the neediest students because we've identified what those students need."
Statewide implementation continues
Melissa Weber-Mayrer, chief of literacy achievement and academic success at the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, told News 5 this is all a part of the state's efforts to help districts, including by paying for new materials and bringing in reading coaches to help teachers adapt to the new methods.
"We're really in that implementation phase right now across the state," Weber-Mayrer said.
She said she expects the statewide process to take at least four to five years to fully implement across all Ohio school districts.
"Districts are still kind of in that transition period of 'I have these materials and teachers are learning how to use them or teachers are becoming more comfortable with this implementation,'" Weber-Mayrer said.
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