Chun: Teaching reading is rocket science

I am sitting with a group of second graders at a rainbow table. I’m a reading interventionist and these students have been selected to work with me because of their reading difficulties.

I pass out a sheet personalized with their first name so they can practice letter formation. One by one, I ask each student to tell me the letters in their name. One student has a seemingly simple name: Eli. Three letters. E. L. I. Yet, Eli could not tell me the names or the sounds of a single letter in his name. He had reached the second grade without being able to read something as fundamental as his own name.

Eli’s story, and the stories of all my students, are not the exception. They represent the shared reality for two-thirds of our children, here in California and across the country since the 1990s. My students are not at risk because they cannot yet read — they are at risk because not knowing how to read limits their access to opportunities, both academically and beyond.

Research shows when we teach students to read by directly guiding them to break the code of how sounds in letters work, about 95% of them can become strong readers — including multilingual learners and those with dyslexia. So why have only one-third of our fourth graders been reading at grade level for the past three decades? This gap persists because students haven’t had access to evidence-based literacy instruction drawn from decades of vast interdisciplinary research in areas such as cognitive psychology, linguistics, communication sciences and education.

Teaching a child how to read is truly rocket science since our brains are not wired to read. Many teachers, myself included, leave their credential programs without the knowledge to meet the literacy needs of our students. That’s why we need expert literacy coaches — specialists in evidence-based, reading instruction with a strong focus on foundational skills. These include phonemic awareness (hearing and working with the sounds in words), phonics (connecting those sounds to letters) and fluency (reading accurately and smoothly). These are the building blocks of reading. As a child learns how to read, a teacher like me is helping a child rewire their brain. Knowing how to do this effectively involves intensive training and ongoing support from coaches.

Assembly Bill 1121, currently under consideration by the state Legislature, would require California’s school districts to provide training for teachers in research-based methods for teaching reading, a comprehensive approach aligned with the state’s ELA/ELD Framework that supports all learners. Funding this kind of professional development — along with support from trained literacy coaches — is a high-return and guaranteed effective investment. When teachers like me are equipped with the right strategies and tools, nearly every student can learn to read.

Long before this bill was introduced, I realized I needed to better understand how children actually learn to read. I did my own research to understand the structured literacy approach. AB 1121 would build that professional development into the system, giving all teachers a coherent baseline understanding that does not require them to piece it together on their own.

Over the past few months, Eli has learned the names and sounds of the letters in his name, has started to sound out letters in simple words and is blending them together to read words like ‘mat.’ It’s a big milestone for Eli — one that has taken a lot of instruction and guided practice using science-driven strategies to achieve. Eli and our students cannot afford to wait. Let’s act now to ensure every child has the opportunity to become the reader they are capable of being.

Chanmi Chun is a student support specialist at George Shirakawa, Sr. Elementary School in San Jose, where she specializes in reading intervention for K-3 students. She is a 2024-25 Teach Plus California Policy Fellow.