Letter to Governor Hochul
Click on the button below to download the letter with signatures that was sent to Governor Hochul. It includes links to pending legislation so you can ask your legislator to sponsor the bills.
January 26, 2023
Response Letter to Governor Hochul’s Veto of the 2022 Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act
Parents, tutors, and teachers of struggling readers throughout New York State were thrilled when The Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act A.2185-B/S.441-C was passed unanimously by the NYS Assembly and Senate. We were crushed recently when Governor Hochul vetoed the bill. Literacy is a determinant of physical and mental health, public health, workforce development, economic security, and democracy. Why would the Governor not want to support efforts to make sure all children learn to read? Poor literacy instruction is so systemic and ingrained in NYS that the City of Buffalo could not hire enough bus drivers because the candidates could not pass the written test.
Parents of and advocates for children who struggle with reading and writing, including those with dyslexia and dysgraphia, in coalition with our NYS education partners, are united in our efforts to ensure all children are taught to read and write proficiently. The education system has continuously failed our children, denying them an education that would provide the most fundamental skills, reading, and writing, thus jeopardizing subsequent academic and career potential. Struggling readers fill our classrooms year after year without reaching grade-level expectations. According to the New York State Assessment results for 2021-22, less than half of our children in grades 3 to 8 are functionally literate, and the rate is even worse for children identified as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Economically Disadvantaged. When a student is advanced yearly without the ability to read or write at grade level, the system creates increased and mounting challenges in other subject areas, further widening the gap between academic success and failure. We know children whose families have resources to outsource their reading instruction fare much better and thrive despite the poor reading instruction rampant in our schools. This reminds us of The Matthew Effect, the biblical analogy that shines a light on this pressing human rights issue: Those who can read skillfully have access to opportunity, while those who cannot fall further behind.
Decades of reading research have proven what works best for all children learning to read and write, including struggling students and students diagnosed with dyslexia and or dysgraphia. The Science of Reading is a collective body of work based on research by experts in education, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and other related fields that have published thousands of significant studies over the last forty years using methods that conform with scientific community standards. The Science of Reading is delivered through a structured literacy approach based on developing fundamental skills and learning knowledge. The instructional approaches are explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic, grounded initially on letter-sound-to-symbol correspondences (phonics). Students learn the alphabetic code of English with phonics instruction. The instruction is supported by aligned cumulatively decodable texts, which ideally have an arc of a story, represent diverse communities, and provide background knowledge.
Structured literacy, of course, approaches literacy holistically with the explicit teaching of vocabulary, syntax, semantics, the practice of fluency, and sharing of knowledge. Together, these efforts build a strong reader who will find joy in books.
The New York State Reading Association (NYSRA) is New York State's largest reading association with a mission to promote a literate, democratic society valuing lifelong learning for its diverse cultures. Yet, NYSRA appears reluctant to endorse scientific evidence in the approach to teaching reading. When The
Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act, which aimed to improve the screening process for how and when struggling readers and writers are identified and ensure the types of interventions provided are aligned with effective evidence-based instruction, passed unanimously in the Senate and Assembly, NYSRA advocated to discourage Governor Hochul from signing the legislation into law. Under the misguidance of Dr. Virginia Goatley and Dr. Donna Scanlon, NYSRA drafted responses and called local representatives to explain the "ramifications" of the bill that had already passed with full support. Yet, Dr. Scanlon's work is contrary to the firmly established and widely accepted cognitive science of how we learn to read alphabetic languages like English. New York families expect that teachers will teach their children to read when they drop them off at school each day. Instead, in most classrooms, students are taught to guess words by looking at pictures or words they might have memorized from a random list.
Such methods have been widely debunked by all reading research as misaligned with effective evidence-based instruction that produces high gains. We want to learn more about NYSRA's rationale for promoting its approach.
The Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act provided a first actionable step towards collectively addressing the literacy crisis in NY, where more than half of students across our state do not attain reading proficiency standards. Research shows that students, who do not reach grade-level reading standards by 3rd-grade, have a less than 70 % chance of ever closing their gaps and will continue to be unable to meet grade-level literacy expectations as they advance through each school year. The cost is not only seen by test scores. We see the cost of special education in upper elementary, middle school, high school, and even college remediation. We see the cost of adult basic education programs in our cities and prisons. Most students never receive the evidence-based reading instruction they need to learn to read and write proficiently. We must ask teaching colleges to prepare pre-teachers to teach children how to read with methods that are in direct alignment with high gains evidence-based instruction and school districts to provide professional development so current teachers can succeed, or we will continue to deprive students from achieving their potential.
Literacy is a human right. It is a matter of equity. It is the social justice issue of our time. The actions NYSRA took may endanger future derivations of The Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act or related policy in New York. We would like to learn what ramifications NYSRA perceives would result from The Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force Act. We welcome an open dialog with NYSRA and also Governor Hochul to learn how we can work together as parents, educators, administrators, and organizations to best meet our shared goal of teaching all kids in NY to reach proficiency standards in reading and writing. We want to end the dire ramifications of poor reading instruction.