The ‘Right to Read’ bill must include teacher preparation

                                                                                             

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Sponsored by The Boston Foundation The Best of CommonWealth Beacon OPINION A school classroom in Holyoke. (Sarah Betancourt/CommonWealth Beacon)

The ‘Right to Read’ bill must include teacher preparation   February 15, 2026 By Luisa Sparrow

The state Legislature appears poised to pass the “Right to Read Act” — legislation that would require school districts to adopt evidence-based literacy curricula. With more than half of students across the state reading below grade level, the legislation serves as a significant step toward addressing Massachusetts’s literacy crisis.

As a special education teacher at the Oliver Hazard Perry School in South Boston, I see every day how crucial evidence-based reading is for students’ success, and how preparing teachers for effective reading instruction is essential.

For more than 10 years, I struggled to teach my students how to read. While my students were able to have high-level discussions about the books I read aloud to them, they were not developing the skills to read texts independently. That changed once I sought an evidence-based literacy curriculum and the training I needed to implement it effectively.

Quality literacy instruction is simply too complex to take a “DIY” approach. With this additional training, I have been able to be even more responsive to individual students’ needs, which is critical in my classroom, where every student has an IEP, half are multilingual learners, and many have high support needs.

My experience with struggling to teach students how to read is true for most teachers across the state. Only 16 percent of teacher preparation programs in Massachusetts adequately prepare teachers for effective reading instruction.

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