South Carolina is Fully Embracing the Science of Reading
Many of us take reading for granted. There are many reasons for this. It could be that embracing the joy of reading was something that just “happened” in our lives at a very young age, and we never give it another thought today.
All homes are full of books, we all know how to read, and we all love to read, right?
Wrong. It takes effective teachers and engaged parents working together to develop the skills and knowledge needed for a child to love to read on their own. When one of those pillars fails, either because teachers are using a curriculum based on flawed pedagogy or parents are disengaged from their child’s reading journey, the child suffers. Sometimes a child will learn to read proficiently on his or her own. It just clicks. Other children never quite “get it”—negatively affecting their ability to continue learning. This is critical, because after a while, students must make the crucial leap from learning to read into reading to learn. Failure to make that pivot severely limits a child’s future employment prospects and intellectual development.
Fortunately, in recent years—mostly under the leadership of State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver and key legislative champions in both the Senate and the House —South Carolina has taken proactive steps to ensure that when it comes to reading, our teachers are effective and our parents are engaged.
The Foundation for Excellence in Education (commonly known as “ExcelinEd”) has compiled a state-by-state analysis of early literacy policies—highlighting which states are doing well and even if they are doing well, where they can improve. ExcelinEd uses 18 unique fundamental principles of good policy. South Carolina is one of only a few states in the nation that is implementing (or planning to implement) every principle. Put another way, in the Palmetto State, each essential Science of Reading policy is fully implemented, will be implemented in the future, or is implemented to a degree but can be improved.
That’s a solid record.
Let’s break down a handful of these fundamental principles into three unique categories and explore them in greater detail.
The Science of Reading
Ensuring that the state has aligned early literacy instruction to the Science of Reading is absolutely essential to improving reading scores and proficiency across South Carolina. The Science of Reading refers to a body of research that highlights five key components of how we learn to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. This is a significant shift away from the decades-long damage done by the three-cueing model of instruction, a model that teaches students to use pictures and similar-looking words to guess at the sound and meaning of a new word.
To that end, South Carolina has banned the use of instructional materials that utilize the three-cueing instructional model in the classroom and woven that restriction throughout our education system. From how we train future teachers to how we intervene with struggling students, the Science of Reading has already delivered marked improvements in state test scores. Since 2024, when most of the Science of Reading provisions were included in the update to the state Read to Succeed law, our proficiency rates on the SC Ready reading exam increased by 6.2 percentage points, and our “C or higher” rate on the English 2 end-of-course assessment increased by 2.1 percentage points. The Science of Reading works, and the data proves it.
Preparing our Teachers to Teach
Of course, if our teachers are not well-versed in the Science of Reading from their educator preparation program, we cannot expect them to be able to effectively teach using those proven methods after graduating. That is why we need to ensure that current teachers are offered the opportunity to receive training in the Science of Reading. South Carolina policy requires educator preparation programs to include specific instruction in the Science of Reading and offers Literacy Teacher endorsements. An endorsement is essentially a certification of competence in a particular area of teaching – it may help to think of a teacher’s certification area as a bachelor’s degree, and endorsements as academic minors. Upon graduation, all future elementary, special education, and early childhood teachers, beginning on September 1, 2026, will be required to pass one of two cumulative exams focused on the Science of Reading. Teaching candidates will need to score 159 or higher on the Praxis 5205 Teaching Reading: Elementary exam or score at least 240 on the Pearson Foundations of Reading 890/190 exam.
For teachers already in the classroom, the state utilizes Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) training to “bring them up to speed” on the Science of Reading. Act 114 of 2024 set a goal that every K-3 early childhood, elementary, and special education teacher in the state must complete this training, and school districts are required to report their progress toward that goal.
If we do not have regular assessments that point to a student’s particular strengths and weaknesses, our teachers will be dramatically limited in their effectiveness. Therefore, the state requires that every K-3 student take a universal literacy screening exam (a benchmark test that helps identify any reading deficiencies or weaknesses) three times a year, and perhaps most importantly, requires that students who are not meeting the mark are placed on an individual reading plan designed to get them on grade level. The student’s parents or guardians must be notified of the deficiency.
Equipping our Parents to Help
Ensuring our parents are engaged in their children’s education is key to ensuring the students are getting the help and support they need, and helps parents understand the importance of education. For students who have a reading deficiency, including dyslexia, their school is required to send information home to their parents on read-at-home plans, which is aligned with the state Department of Education’s Family Engagement Framework.
What’s next?
Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas when it comes to teaching our children how to read. Literacy at every level is important, but without the foundations of literacy that we build before the student reaches 4th grade, later learning becomes difficult, if not outright impossible. Superintendent Ellen Weaver has done yeoman’s work in improving early literacy since her election just a few short years ago, but she cannot do it alone – we must all remain engaged and ensure that students are receiving the support they need as they learn to read:
- New teachers must learn the correct pedagogy while in their educator preparation program
- Established teachers must be trained in the Science of Reading and understand how to use the curriculum provided to them
- Parents must be active participants in their child’s reading journey.
Together, we can ensure that every child is able to read and, therefore, open the door to maximizing their God-given potential.
Special thanks to the K-12 Literacy Team at the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) for providing the bulk of the source information contained in this blog. Here are more specifics on Palmetto Promise Institute’s Read to Succeed efforts. For South Carolina’s early literacy landscape and what else can be done to improve it, please visit EarlyLiteracyMatters.org.
