New Jersey's youngest students will get a boost in the fight to improve their reading skills Governor Murphy today signing legislation that'll require K through third graders to be screened for literacy at least twice a year along with creating new programs to train teachers and Librarians it's all part of the governor's pledge he made earlier this year to find new ways to help New Jersey's kids who are falling behind senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports I've never worked on a piece of legislation that so seamlessly went from thought to bills to conversations to getting it posted in committee and to getting here to today to Governor Murphy signing into law a package of Two Bills aimed at improving Literacy for elementary students across the state of New Jersey with this legislative package we're signing into law today we will make sure that every prek and Elementary educator as well as other key School staff members that students interact with and Trust receives high quality professional development on best practices in literacy instruction those best practices including making Educators aware of the State's new literacy standards that rely heavily on Phonics rather than other less reliable ways of teaching reading according to data the need for improved literacy instruction became clear in the years after the pandemic where reading proficiency for third and fourth graders fell below 50% according to several academic reports we're also establishing Universal screening of K through third grade students twice a year to help ensure every child's unique needs are met for the first time the state is guaranteeing that every one of our youngest Learners will be screened for reading proficiency using a highquality screening tool and then to make sure that we get that information back to the parents quickly so they know how well their student is doing as part of the bill package the state's allocating $5 million to school districts to help them meet the screening requirements we have the best trained teachers we have the most dedicated professionals and teachers and when they're given the resources that they need to serve students they open up a world of possibilities for everybody and building equity in education is not only our duty it's also a really smart investment and a second Bill signed today launches a new office dedicated to supporting these efforts a new office of learning equity and academic recovery and and this will be an office that will serve a critical role in coordinating literacy efforts across our state government and school districts to help us raise literacy rates as quickly and as efficiently as possible the new office of learning equity and academic recovery will operate in partnership with C University whose president is former education commissioner Lamont repet the details of what that partnership will look like are still being ironed out but lawmakers here say it they'll have a huge impact on students I think it was more of a recognition that you cannot you can't look at over 50% of our third and fourth graders not reading and say this is not enough but when you look at African American and Latino students we're at 75 and 76 and the evidence is so clear you do not have a foundation in reading your obstacles for your academic success just grow larger when your obstacles for academic success grow you're farther away from obtaining a high school diploma and or any other license and what happens with that your earnings and your income potential just get smaller and smaller Senate Majority Leader Tessa Ruiz was the driver Behind these bills convening a working group made up of Education experts from around the state many today said the collaboration helped move the bills forward so quickly and seamlessly Jersey can executive director Paula White was one of them more than a year ago Jersey K authored a report called leveraging literacy uh and it's really about the path to academic recovery in the state of New Jersey and so we talked about literacy as being pivotal to academic recovery and so today what we are seeing is the fruition of those ideas which specifically marri's literacy to academic recovery so we could not be happier and we are just excited about the work that lies ahead that work includes oversight guidelines for districts and more details on the role of the new office in that process in Newark I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News [Music]