REASONS WHY

While the brain is hard-wired for speech, reading must be carefully taught based on the Science of Reading, but 40% of MA schools continue to use harmful, “3 cueing” methods of instruction. Passing these bills will stop poor instruction and replace it with evidence-based, explicit, sequential teaching in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, grammar, and morphology.

   White and Asian populations scored above 50% on the MCAS tests; black, Latino, and low-income students scored in the 20th percentiles; students with disabilities, 14%; English learners, 10%.

The new bills require districts to evaluate student progress, report results to parents, and provide programs for at-risk children.

   Only 1/3 of MA 4th graders & MA 8th graders read at grade level on the 2024, National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. 

Researchers claim that 98% of children can learn to read.

BENEFITS OF THE “RIGHT TO READ” BILLS

1. Children who read at grade level or above graduate from high school and become productive citizens.
2. At-risk children may experience bullying, anxiety, depression, acting-out, addiction, and other family problems over school. Some enter the pipe-line to prison. If MA educated these children successfully, the state would avoid paying to care for these unfortunate people.
3. Reading is a civil right, and we owe it to our children to provide all of them with the best possible reading instruction.

Please, contact your state senator and state representative now to pass the new “Right to Read” literacy bills.

40 states have passed literacy laws recently, and scores improve.