Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a law last fall that will take effect in 2027. It’s designed to fundamentally change how children are taught to read in Michigan’s public schools.
The law is rooted in something that’s a hot topic right now: the “science of reading.” It also brings dyslexia awareness into classrooms in a way that it’s never been before.
In this second part of a two-part series, we explore how these changes are likely to look in classrooms, and what factors will decide their success there.
“What we’re doing is working”
Kerriann Poquette is a first grade teacher at Cedar Crest Elementary in Greenville, northeast of Grand Rapids. She’s relatively new in that particular role, but she’s worked as both a classroom teacher and school administrator for over 20 years.
A few years ago, Poquette started to realize something. The way she was teaching her students to read…it wasn’t really showing the kind of results she wanted. And she said that’s because when she was training to be a teacher, she was never really given explicit instruction on how to do it.
“When I was in my college courses, I wasn't learning how to teach kids how to read,” Poquette explained. “And that was even as a person going through coursework to become a special educator, in specifically teaching students who had been identified as having learning disabilities.”
But now, Poquette is one of thousands of Michigan public school teachers who’ve taken a course designed to do exactly that. It’s called Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling–LETRS for short.
Poquette said that essentially un-learning what she’d been taught, and using more evidence-based reading instruction in the classroom, hasn’t always been easy. But she said it has been worthwhile, because she’s seeing results.
Big results, in fact. Her first graders’ scores on reading assessments have jumped dramatically after she started basing her instruction on principles that underpin the so-called “science of reading.” That’s kind of a catch-all term for what reading research over the past five decades has shown us really works.
“It’s very exciting,” Poquette said. “So I think that data does help us keep motivated, and shows us that what we're doing is working.”
But Poquette is clear that it’s taken a team effort to get there. She said she’s lucky to have a principal who’s not only fully bought into this change, but makes time and space for teachers to get the training and know-how they need to do it effectively.
“They've prioritized it because our state has prioritized it,” Poquette said. “Which trickles down to our districts, which then trickles down to our buildings, which then trickles down to our classrooms.”
Adding to teachers’ burden?
Poquette’s experience shows how Michigan’s new reading laws could play out on a much larger scale. But it also shows how their success is dependent on a number of factors.
A really big one, of course, is teacher buy-in. But it’s not just that. Teachers will also need the support of their school administrators, district officials, and others to make this work. And it’s not yet clear that all those people are fully on board with what these laws are trying to do.
When the Michigan Legislature held hearings on these proposed changes, one of the largest and loudest groups opposing them were school districts and administrators. Now, to be clear: not everyone who fits that description felt that way. In fact, some came out in vocal support of the changes. But the overall sentiment from the state’s public school officials was that these changes would be burdensome, unworkable, and potentially dangerous.
Gregory Nyen is superintendent of the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency, the consolidated school district for a number of schools in the Upper Peninsula. During hearings, he told state lawmakers that he and many of his fellow district leaders shared serious concerns.
“One major concern is the undue stress on teachers, especially special education teachers,” Nyen said. “The proposed bills’ requirements for special specific assessments and interventions, without providing necessary support, will only add to their burden.”
Nyen also told lawmakers that school leaders were seriously concerned about the parts of the laws that make flagging students with signs of dyslexia mandatory. He said requiring teachers to recognize those signs, and refer students who show them for an initial special education evaluation, could have unforeseen consequences.
“Schools may face lawsuits if they are perceived as failing to comply with the legislation, or if the mandated tools do not yield the promised results,” he said.
Staying the course
The Michigan Department of Education is working on those perceived problems in the two years before the laws fully kick into effect. In addition to providing grants for teachers to get LETRS training, they’ve also put out a dyslexia handbook, and are trying to reassure educators they’ll have the training and supports needed to faithfully execute the new requirements.
Kim St. Martin is director of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Technical Assistance Center based at MDE. She made a point that I, as the parent of a child diagnosed with dyslexia, have discovered through firsthand experience: “Dyslexia has been something that many of our educators haven’t heard a lot about.”
St. Martin said the state is using this prep window before the new requirements hit classrooms to try and correct that. She said that in her experience many, if not most, teachers are open to the idea of learning new ways to approach reading instruction–but only if, like Kerriann Poquette, they start to see positive results from them.
St. Martin emphasized that right now, many educators feel like they’re overburdened, overworked, and constantly piled on by non-educators from the outside. She thinks it’s important to recognize that, and to give school administrators the tools they’ll need to make this a success. Because if administrators don’t buy in and get it right, teachers won’t have a chance.
“They [administrators] are making decisions around curriculum, how to prioritize time, how to support teachers, how to support things that should be in the hands of our teachers, and how to provide guidance in what to stop doing,” St. Martin said.
And now, all of this is playing out at a time when the Trump administration is threatening to cut or even eliminate federal funding and resources for public schools, among other potential dramatic changes to education policy. But for now, Michigan is staying the course in its new commitment to early literacy instruction–and hoping for the success some other states have seen when it comes to teaching young kids how to read.
