Hochul wants schools to teach phonics to address concerns over reading proficiency

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday that she will try to throw out the current way reading is taught and require all schools to teach phonics, a once widely used system that has had a rebirth nationwide since reading test scores plummeted during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under her proposal, all school districts would need to align with the “science of reading” approach, which includes phonics or “sounding out” words and “decoding” the roots of words to increase comprehension and vocabulary. Hochul said schools would need to certify to the state that this practice is in place by September 2025.

“New York State is currently not meeting basic reading proficiency levels,” Hochul said Wednesday. “My back-to-basics initiative … is a bold goal to change how reading is taught in New York.”

Hochul said details of her proposal will be released Tuesday with her State of the State address, in which she tries to set the legislative agenda for the year.

Governors have been frustrated in past years when they have tried to set education policy. In New York, the state Board of Regents sets education policy and would likely review Hochul's proposal. The board could support, reject or amend it. The proposal also would be reviewed by the Senate and Assembly education committees, and the State Legislature would ultimately decide to accept or reject Hochul’s proposal.

Hochul also proposed that the state spend $10 million to train teachers in phonics and related strategies — often called the “science of reading” — aimed at teaching students to read at grade level by third grade.

“We can do better. We will do better and I am going to set high goals for us,” Hochul said at an elementary school in Albany County. “We are going to throw away the old method … it didn’t work.”

Some national critics of phonics have argued that the English language is too complex and contains many common words rooted in foreign languages. Instead, most schools have taught recent generations of students to read a word and understand it on its face, rather than sounding it out under phonics.

But phonics began a resurgence in a big way in southern states beginning in 2013 to combat illiteracy. In 2019, Mississippi saw its reading test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress “soar,” according to the trade journal Education Week.

On Long Island, schools including Lynbrook’s Kindergarten Center already have embraced methods under the science of reading, named for extensive research that went into creating the system. Under the program, words are not just letters on a board, but also sounds with interconnected meanings and common roots. That enables the students to understand how words are composed of sounds.

“We are definitely seeing an uptick in phonics,” said Sarah Holbrook, an adjunct professor of literacy education at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

“Learning to read isn’t natural,” she said. “We have to get different areas of the brain to work for us … the science of reading is what research says is how the brain learns to read.”

Phonics activates those parts of the brain, said Holbrook, a former teacher and now a school administrator. She said phonics was lost in the 1980s “reading wars” in which several theories of teaching reading emerged and different schools adopted different programs.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa didn’t attend Hochul’s news conference Wednesday. She provided a statement released by Hochul’s office that supports “drawing from evidence-based literacy instruction methods,” but didn’t specifically address Hochul’s proposal.

A spokeswoman for Rosa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. There was no immediate answer about how many schools already teach phonics.

John King Jr., chancellor of the State University of New York that trains most New York State teachers, supported Hochul’s proposal.

“Governor Hochul’s proposed $10 million investment to support thousands of teachers in implementing the science of reading will enable generations of students to be strong readers and successful citizens,” King said.

Hochul also had lined up support from a national parents group.

“The governor’s Back to Basics Reading plan answers our call by beginning to address the reading crisis that has persisted for decades and has the opportunity to transform the lives of children across New York,” said Ashara Baker, New York State director for the National Parents Union, which is affiliated with 1,000 parent organizations in every state.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.