Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has been pressing to use the phonics-based science of reading since early 2023, mandating the approach as the sole way to teach reading in elementary schools.
Now, he’s targeting preschools and younger children, this time with a carrot and no stick.
DeWine and the state Department of Children and Youth have been offering free, voluntary online classes in the science of reading to preschool teachers and administrators for nearly a year.
Last month, DeWine and state officials set aside $5 million in federal grants to offer $750 bonuses to preschool teachers and administrators who complete at least 10 hours of the training by next summer.
“By providing Science of Reading training for those who teach and care for our young children, we will be empowering these educators to lay the groundwork for more of our kids to reach their full potential,” DeWine saud in a press release announcing the grants.
Within a week, more than 500 teachers had already applied for the $750.
Early childhood experts say that though preschools don’t offer the same intensity of reading lessons that kindergarten and first grade teachers do, there are ways to subtly improve young children’s understanding of letters and their sounds with play, songs and games that fit their age.
Preschool is a “golden opportunity to capitalize on the unique energy, curiosity, and explosive growth in oral language that children experience during the preschool years,” University of California, Berkely Emerita professor Lily Wong Fillmore and New York University professor Susan Neumann wrote for The 74 earlier this year.
“Early-learning experiences have exponential power: they can shape lifelong learning habits and accelerate literacy, particularly for English-language learners,” they wrote.
How many states have made science of reading a focus for preschool isn’t clear, largely because states don’t require preschool and few pay for it. Only 35 percent of four year olds nationally attend preschool, according to the National Institutes for Early Childhood Research at Rutgers University.
But NIEER researcher Lori Connors-Tadros said requiring, or encouraging science of reading methods in preschools, like Ohio is doing, is “a growing trend.”
“Legislators are adding requirements if they have a state funded Pre-K program around training for preschool teachers, and in some states, they’re actually requiring some training for administrators,” she said.
DeWine and the Ohio legislature joined a national movement to the science of reading in 2023, ordering schools in to stop using other methods and to implement the curriculum by the 2024-25 school year.
They budgeted $64 million to help school districts using other approaches buy new teaching materials and required teachers from kindergarten and up to be trained in science of reading concepts.
The state then created a series of online lessons that take eight hours for some high school teachers and administrators and 22 hours for most elementary school teachers.
More than 85,000 K-12 teachers completed that training by the end of October, according to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
The state also started offering two tracks of free online training for preschool staff — one for three and four-year-olds and one for younger infants and toddlers — through the Rollins Center for Language & Literacy, based in Atlanta last December.
Students at the First Baptist Church Children’s Center in Shaker Heights, Ohio, learn about the sounds each letter represents, not just how they look and their order.
Jane Pernicone, director of the First Baptist Church Children’s Center in Shaker Heights, Ohio, said she took some of the classes and planned to have teachers at her 100-child center take them over the next few years.
With grants now available, Pernicone said she’s encouraging her eight lead teachers to take the classes right away to earn the bonus. The state limits grants to $3,000 per preschool, or four staff, so Pernicone said she’ll skip her bonus and share the total grants between the eight teachers.
Though her center was mostly using science of reading through its Creative Curriculum materials, Pernicone said the lessons are good reinforcement and reminders to focus on using varied vocabulary, constantly interact with children in conversations and to show them how each letter sounds and not just teach them what the letters are.
“It’s good awareness for staff to realize…’oh, I should focus on building vocabulary’…as opposed to just making sure children know their ABCs,” she said. “There’s a lot of good content, just kind of a reframing of good practices.”
The $5 million for the grants comes from the federal Preschool Development Birth through Five Grant and the Child Care and Development Fund. DeWine’s office did not respond to questions about whether his new two-year state budget proposal due early next year would include any money for preschool reading training.