Makes various changes to the K-3 Reading Program.
- Requires, applicants for elementary teaching certificates to complete 45 classroom hours, or three credit hours, in reading instruction, including training on assessments, instructional practices and interventions to improve student reading proficiency.
- Requires school districts and charter schools to use monies generated by the K-3 reading support level weight only on instructional purposes based on the K-3 reading program plan submitted to the Arizona Department of Education (ADE).
- Requires best practice examples be evidence-based and selected from school districts and charter schools that: a)demonstrate improvement on third grade reading proficiency; and b)represent school districts and charter schools in demographic composition, including rural and urban, size and student characteristics.
- Changes the Early Literacy Grant Program Fund to the Early Literacy Program Fund and requires ADE to award funds to eligible schools, rather than award grants on a three-year cycle, on a per pupil basis, calculated using the student count for pupils in kindergarten programs and grades one, two and three.
- Requires monies be used to expand, enhance and support the components, rather than supplement and not supplant activities, in a school’s reading program plan.
- Requires eligible schools that receive funds from the Early Literacy Program Fund to submit data on expenditures, results and other information.
- Requires the notification to instruct the parent to choose, in consultation with the student’s teacher, the most appropriate intervention and remedial strategies.
- Requires diagnostic information to be used to plan evidence-based, appropriate and effective instruction.
- Includes coaching in the reading trainings or professional development offered by ADE.
- Specifies the K-3 reading program plan administered by school districts and charter schools must be evidence-based.