Will St. Louis kids read better if teachers learn how their brains work?

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The Ferguson-Florissant School District had a literacy problem—that much was clear to superintendent Joseph Davis last year. About 80 percent of his students had scored below “proficient” in English Language Arts on recent state-administered tests. He was dissatisfied. So were his teachers. But what could they do? Standardized test scores are influenced by family income levels, and this isn’t a wealthy district: The entire student body is eligible for free and reduced price lunch. 

Then, in the fall, a six-part investigative podcast called Sold a Story dropped. While exercising, Davis would listen to it. And listen to it. And listen some more—to each episode several times, he says. 

“I was angry,” he says. 

In the podcast, which was produced by American Public Media, journalist Emily Hanford lays out the case that a widespread strategy for teaching kids to read doesn’t work. Known as “balanced literacy,” it holds that kids can learn to decipher unfamiliar words using cues—context, illustrations, the first letter—without an intensive grounding in phonics, a.k.a. sounding out words. Yet this is simply wrong, reports Hanford: She points to decades of research showing that English literacy must begin with phonics. 

Davis was angry because Ferguson-Florissant, like other districts around St. Louis and the country, had been using balanced literacy. But as Sold a Story and other outlets have explained, a whole “science of reading” movement has sprung up around the country to challenge it and insist on evidence-based instruction. Indeed, APM reports that a majority of states have passed legislation aligning themselves with the science of reading. Missouri is one. Last year, lawmakers in Jefferson City pushed through an education bill known as SB 681. One of its effects is that thousands of public educators, including scores of Davis’s teachers from Ferguson-Florissant, have signed up for a voluntary, state-subsidized training called LETRS.  

LETRS is an intensive, two-year course that many other states have used; it’s being offered statewide by Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to public educators at no cost. LETRS is not a curriculum. Rather, it’s a course that digs into the body of research on how young minds learn to read. 

The vast majority of teachers never encounter such a course in college or professional development, observes Stephanie Tuck, a literacy consultant at the nonprofit EdPlus, which provides state-funded LETRS training. “There was an assumption that teachers would’ve already known how students learn to read,” says Tuck, “and that simply wasn’t true.” 

Apparently, teachers are hungry for it: Kimm O’Connor, another EdPlus literacy consultant, says all the nonprofit’s nonprofit’s cohorts (which have added up to hundreds of openings) have have maxed out on word of mouth alone. “It’s not us going out and advertising,” says O’Connor. “It truly is teachers talking to one another and saying, ‘You’ve got to do this.’”

The enthusiasm at St. Louis Public Schools, at least, is real, confirms Jill Toney, who coordinates that district’s academic instructional coaches. Often, teacher training without coaching afterward fails to stick, so SLPS has about 40 coaches doing LETRS in addition to hundreds of teachers. “You watch the room of all these reading specialists together,” says Toney, “and their minds are being blown.”

According to DESE data, at least 1,248 public educators in St. Louis-area districts have participated in state-funded LETRS over the past two years, in addition to those who’ve sought the training directly with Lexia, the company behind the course. DESE says state and federal funding could allow up to 15,000 classroom teachers in Missouri to get the training. 

But will LETRS training translate into better reading scores?

Lexia has posted an “evidence base” document for LETRS on its website. The document summarizes eight studies and evaluations and lists “key findings.” One finding is that LETRS training results in “improved teacher knowledge and practice.” But that’s an impact on teachers, not students. 

Another finding is that student outcomes have indeed improved after the implementation of LETRS—most notably in Mississippi, whose massive gains in reading have lately been dubbed “the Mississippi Miracle.” But in those studies, LETRS was accompanied by other interventions. Therefore, Lexia writes, “the observed effects cannot be attributed to either LETRS or the other interventions,” but the company still considers the pattern “a rationale” for doing the training. (Lexia did not answer an email inquiry from SLM.)

None of this means that LETRS will fail to improve reading in St. Louis. It just means that so far, researchers don’t appear to have established a causal link. 

Tuck believes that the benefits from LETRS would take time to manifest anyway because such trainings are only a first step. “The next part,” she says, “is to change instruction to mirror what you learned in LETRS.”

Either way, the state will be watching. SB 681 not only provided the money that subsidizes LETRS training, but also mandated that public schools submit the results of regular internal reading assessments and carry out “intensive” catch-up plans for kids who fall behind by a grade level or more. Soon, a statewide dashboard will pinpoint where the problems are, says Dr. Tracy Hinds, the deputy commissioner at DESE. The data will enable improvement, she says: “I think the stars are really starting to align.” 

More generally, SB 681 requires that public schools offer “evidence-based” literacy instruction in K–5 classrooms. Missouri is a local-control state, so DESE can’t force particular books on districts; instead, DESE is putting out a list of curricula that complies with the new law. 

Davis and his colleagues in Ferguson-Florissant haven’t waited around for the list. They’ve been searching for a new evidence-based reading curriculum for the upcoming school year. They’ll be basing their choice, he says, on the ideas that they’re learning in LETRS. 

Davis himself is taking a shortened version of LETRS designed for administrators. He gushes about the insights he’s taken away: the origin of the alphabet, how brains decode letters, why phonics instruction between kindergarten and third grade is so crucial. “I’m probably crazy for doing this,” he says, “but I could do this 10 times over because I’ve learned so much. 

“If we can get the message out, especially to communities that have fewer resources and are struggling,” he adds,“it just gives them a fair chance.