Director’s Desk: Implementation of the Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy

On August 26th, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) released the results of the 2024-25 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP). According to the state’s release, “English Language Arts proficiency has now reached 50.8%, up from 48.4% the previous year and 45.3% percent in the 2021-22 school year. Black/African American student performance in ELA increased 3.2 percentage points from the prior year to 39.4%, and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds improved ELA proficiency by 3.4 percentage points to 34.5%” (learn more here).

As we begin a new era and a new school year, this month’s Equity Exchange newsletter begins with a focus on the Implementation of the Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy. As our state launches this groundbreaking work, literacy and reading will be frequent topics and the focus of much of the work of our center. In this month’s edition, Dr. Barrett Rosser, NCEED Research Faculty member in our Literacy Pillar and Assistant Professor of Teacher Education and Professional Development, writes about her work helping students and teachers create a “living archive” – researching cultural identities while honing writing and storytelling skills. (See Building a Living Archive: Black Youth (Re)Writing Philadelphia Histories). This month’s Numbers That Matter article explores Maryland’s required “system of assessments… including universal screening, diagnostic surveys, and progress monitoring of student growth toward grade-level reading.” (See Reading Screeners, Diagnostic Assessments, and Progress Monitoring).

The new state literacy policy is already in full swing. According to the Maryland State Board of Education-approved Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy (p. 17), the Timeline for Implementation includes the following key components:

Professional learning for educators and Literacy Coaches (Beginning SY 2024-25)
Technical assistance in designing MTSS models (Beginning SY 2024-25)
Provide training on the Student Reading Improvement Plan template (Beginning SY 2025)
LEAs submit the first annual report of the number of teachers who have participated in MSDE-approved Science of Reading professional learning programs (September 15, 2025)
LEAs implement the PreK-5 MTSS Model, with MSDE support, including Student Reading Improvement Plans (Beginning SY 2026-2027)
LEAs implement MSDE-approved universal screeners (Beginning SY 2026-2027)
Implement retention portion of Literacy Policy (Beginning SY 2027-2028).

These are among the many areas where The National Center for Elimination of Educational Disparities (NCEED) can provide technical assistance to school districts and where NCEED will focus its research efforts (learn more about us here).

As can be seen, while the highly publicized retention portion of the policy does not begin until SY 2027-2028, many of the critical components have already begun – e.g., MTSS model development and Science of Reading training and implementation.

In this edition of the Equity Express, the articles will focus on the NCEED Literacy Pillar. The articles are titled: 1) Implementation of the Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy, 2) Building a Living Archive: Black Youth (Re)Writing Philadelphia Histories, and 3) Reading Screeners, Diagnostic Assessments, and Progress Monitoring.

As a former teacher, administrator, and superintendent, it is encouraging to see consensus among the literacy community. While there will almost certainly be years of debate among reading researchers about the most critical factors and best predictors of reading comprehension, it is critically important that our teachers finally receive consistent, unambiguous information about the basic foundational literacy concepts. For example, researchers can debate the relative importance or weight of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) or more complex views, but, for our teachers, school leaders must be clear about the critical role of word recognition and the speed of word recognition in reading comprehension (Duke & Cartwright, 2021; Hoover & Tunmer, 2020). As research has shown, “The ability to sound out and recognize words accounts for about 80 percent of the variance in first-grade reading comprehension” (Moats, 2020).

It is also clear that there is a percentage threshold in word recognition that readers must reach to permit fluency and comprehension, and that it is advantageous for children to reach this threshold as early as possible. “Multilevel growth models revealed that the improvement of word-recognition speed and reading comprehension was more pronounced for children who reached the critical threshold by the end of first grade” (Karageorgos et al., 2020). While the precise threshold is important – some research suggests that 71% is the critical word recognition threshold – in our teacher training, understanding the concept is most important. Similarly, there can be little doubt about the importance of explicitly teaching beginning readers grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) correspondences and then, as they become more skilled, larger units and morphemes (Nunes, Bryant, & Barros, 2012). For older readers, “background knowledge and vocabulary become ever-larger factors in comprehending academic texts” (Moats, 2020; Talwar et al., 2018; Yaden et al., 2021).

The above examples are just a few from the research, albeit important ones. Yet, even as there is a growing consensus about the theory, how we meet students’ needs is even more critical. Many, if not all, of the above concepts have been implemented numerous times in the past with limited success. So, what makes Maryland’s plan different?

First, of course, the Maryland plan includes all of the Science of Reading components. “Reading Intervention… means evidence-based, sequential, systematic, explicit, and cumulative instruction or intervention to mastery of foundational literacy skills, including phonological or phonemic awareness and processing, phonics, and vocabulary to support development of decoding, spelling, fluency, writing, and reading comprehension skills to meet grade level curriculum. It encompasses evidence-based strategies to address reading challenges, including individual and small group instruction, multisensory approaches, tutoring, technology-assisted learning paired with face-to-face supports, and targeting specific reading skills” (Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy, pg. 6).

Second, and equally important, the Maryland plan acknowledges that some students will require additional time and tiered support. “Each PreK-3 student who exhibits difficulties in reading shall receive supplemental instruction aligned to their identified needs through a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), which includes:

A proactive, school-wide framework for supporting and increasing academic, behavioral, and social-emotional outcomes for ALL students with areas of concern;
Program-specific monitoring tools that LEAs should use to collect and analyze intervention data to make instructional decisions;
Opportunities for students who are experiencing reading challenges to be identified early, receive targeted intervention to support their needs, and have their progress closely monitored over time;
Supports that address a student’s identified needs with varying intensity and duration across the three tiers;
Home partnerships with parents/guardians as an integral part of the decision-making team;
Provisions such that student participation in any tier of this framework does not delay or deny a student who may be suspected of having a disability from the appropriate evaluation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); and
All students, including Multilingual Learners, Students with Disabilities, and Students with a Student Reading Improvement Plan, must be provided access to all levels of tiered instruction (The Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy, pg. 11).

The National Center for Elimination of Educational Disparities is “driven by its mission to undertake research that addresses critically important questions related to the academic, social, and emotional outcomes of all children. Now, and in the years to come, among the most important questions will be those related to Maryland’s implementation of the Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy. Those questions will also be at the forefront for our faculty and staff.

We at NCEED, and a growing number of national and international experts, know “it is possible to teach most students how to read if we start early and follow the significant body of research showing which practices are most effective. Students living in poverty, students of color, and students who are eligible for remedial services can become competent readers—at any age. Persistent ‘gaps’ between more advantaged and less advantaged students can be narrowed and even closed. Fundamentally, these gaps are the result of differences in students’ opportunities to learn—not their learning abilities… and the consequences are particularly dire for students from the least advantaged families and communities” (Moats, 2020).

References:

Cartwright, K. B., Marshall, T. R., & Wray, E. (2016). A longitudinal study of the role of reading motivation in primary students’ reading comprehension: Implications for a less simple view of reading. Reading Psychology, 37(1), 55-91.

Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the simple view of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S25-S44.

Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (2020). The simple view of reading: A useful way to think about reading and learning to read. The Reading League Journal, 1(2), 35-40., 1(2).

Karageorgos, P., Richter, T., Haffmans, M. B., Schindler, J., & Naumann, J. (2020). The role of word-recognition accuracy in the development of word-recognition speed and reading comprehension in primary school: A longitudinal examination. Cognitive Development, 56, 100949.

MacDonald, M. C. (2015). The emergence of language comprehension. The handbook of language emergence, 81-99.

MSDE, 2024. Maryland Comprehensive PreK-3 Literacy Policy (Pg. 17). Maryland State Department of Education. https://marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Documents/ELA/PreK-Literacy-Policy-Fall-Final-a.pdf

Moats, L. C. (2020). Teaching Reading” Is” Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able to Do. American Educator, 44(2), 4.

Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Barros, R. (2012). The development of word recognition and its significance for comprehension and fluency. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), 959.

Perfetti, C., & Stafura, J. (2014). Word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. Scientific studies of Reading, 18(1), 22-37.

Roberts, T. A., Christo, C., & Shefelbine, J. A. (2011). Word recognition. In Handbook of reading research, volume IV (pp. 229-258). Routledge.

Talwar, A.L., Tighe, E., & Greenberg, D. (2018). Augmenting the simple view of reading for struggling adult readers: A unique role for background knowledge. Scientific Studies of Reading, 22(5), 351–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2018.1450410

Yaden Jr, D. B., Reinking, D., & Smagorinsky, P. (2021). The trouble with binaries: A perspective on the science of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S119-S129.