Laura Stewart, Chief Academic Officer for 95 Percent Group, and Pamela Toman, executive director of TX Reads give an overview of how Texas is bringing big changes to literacy and offer best practices that districts across the country can deploy as they plan for the shift to evidence-based, structured literacy instruction.

Following a career as a teacher, administrator, and professional with Rowland Reading Foundation, Highlights Education Group, and The Reading League, Laura Stewart joined 95 Percent Group as Chief Academic Officer. She’s on a mission, and it’s an important one. Stewart says that children today are at risk of falling behind in school and life if they don’t learn to read proficiently by the end of third grade. Her goal is to help all children “flourish as literate citizens of the 21st century.”

Glen Rose Independent school District is a small, rural district outside of Fort Worth, Texas. Families who live in the community are often drawn to what the district’s website calls small town values with big time vision. “We were seeing a real lack of growth in reading skills among students,” said Mehgan Shuelke, an educational diagnostician and reading specialist. “We knew something needed to change.”

Southside Independent School District is in the southside of the city of San Antonio, Texas, and serves more than 5,000 students. In fall of 2021, the district’s elementary school teachers participated in a professional learning course on the science of reading, which helped them learn the evidence-based approach to developing literacy skills through phonics instruction. Next they needed the best resources available for turning their new knowledge into practice.

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It’s the final day of school. Teachers and students alike are watching the clock as it ticks down. 3…2…1… The bell rings. Students throw their homework in the air in celebration, dance on the desks, run screaming through the hallways, burst through the doors to the outside, where the sun is shining brightly...