At her 2024 State of the State address, amid the prominent talks on housing and mental health, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul made a call to revive the old ways of teaching reading.
“We are also giving children the resources they need to live full, healthy, and successful lives, and that starts with teaching them how to read,” Gov. Hochul said in a state Senate chamber on Jan. 9.
“It is time to get rid of debunked curriculums in schools and get back to the basics, using phonics and proven techniques that work,” she added.
The state government will allocate $10 million to train 20,000 teachers statewide in evidence-based instructional practices, commonly known as the “science of reading” method.
Related teacher micro-credential programs at the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems will be expanded accordingly.
Port Jervis City School District Superintendent John Bell said the new state initiative would balance the reading instructions at districts that had ditched the phonetics-based approach.
As for districts that had recently restored the method, such as Port Jervis, the state investment would help cover expenses in teacher training and material supplies, he added.
“We are always looking to have more teacher professional development when it comes to reading because every subject relies on a kid being able to read,” he told The Epoch Times.
“If we could get all our teachers to be trained and have the state pay for it, it would be wonderful.”
The district uses phonetics-based teacher training programs provided by a Massachusetts-based educator services provider named Wilson.
Nearby Minisink Valley Central School District also brought back phonetics-based teaching methods in recent years, according to Superintendent Brian Monahan.
It currently works with a Syracuse-based nonprofit Reading League to train its teachers and revise its curriculums in accordance with the “science of reading” method, according to district meeting records.
A Middle Ground
Over the past 30 years or so of public education career in the tri-state area, Mr. Bell has seen the pendulum of reading instruction swing back and forth a few times.“When I was a little kid, the way we were taught was exactly what the governor is talking about,” he said. “Then the opposite side of the pendulum from phonetics was a thing called ‘the whole language.’”
“The idea was to expose kids to really good literature and the process of reading, and they would figure out the words by themselves in a sentence, paragraph, or story,” he explained. “The thinking was that phonetics was boring and the whole language was exciting.”
However, Mr. Bell came to believe that a good reading program would have a healthy dose of both.
Aside from the phonetics-based approach, the district also works with the Teachers College at Columbia University in a reading program focused on exposure to good literature.
“Whether you agree or disagree with the governor on this, it is exciting to have her talk about education at the State of the State address,” Mr. Bell said. “We appreciate any support for education at the state level.”
