Oklahoma Education and You

Oklahoma’s Strong Readers Act and the proposed changes to it have a laudable goal: to increase reading proficiency across Oklahoma Schools. In their effort, Oklahoma legislators are attempting to follow Mississippi’s blueprint for success. However, we need to consider some capacity-related factors.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s 2023–24 Strong Readers Governor’s Report says 90,741 K–3 students, or 46.9%, were identified as at risk of reading difficulties at the beginning of the year. Even by the end of the year, 70,877 students, or 36.6%, remained at risk and on a reading intervention plan. That is more than a third of Oklahoma’s K–3 population. (oklahoma.gov)

Some lay people may not be aware of all that teachers are required to do under the Strong Reader Act. First, the Oklahoma statute requires teachers and schools to use a Multi-Tiered System of Support. In essence, this means that different students receive instruction customized to their current reading skills. It’s a research-backed strategy. Tier 1 students are those considered able to succeed with regular whole-group classroom instruction. Tier 2 students need additional help or time to succeed. Tier 3 students have significant deficits and need even more support to reach grade-level.

Under the statute, the teacher provides all students with 90 minutes of on-grade-level instruction (Tier 1) each day. According to Oklahoma’s current guidance, students who score below the 40th percentile on a beginning-of-year screener must be identified for support, while students at or above the 40th percentile are considered likely to succeed in core instruction without added support. Those below that mark must have a Student Literacy Intervention Plan, or SLIP.

Oklahoma then divides those students into three groups. Students who score between the 26th and 39th percentile are taught during the 90-minute reading block, but must receive differentiated instruction each day. Students in the 11th–25th percentile for Tier 2 must receive 15 minutes of individualized or small group instruction in addition to the 90 minutes of on-grade-level instruction on specific skill deficits each day, and students in the 1st–10th percentile for Tier 3 must receive at least 30 minutes in addition to the 90 minutes of on-grade-level instruction.

During the 90-minute reading block, all students receive grade-level material, but those below the 40th percentile are expected to receive differentiated instruction. This can include several strategies. One common method is for the teacher to teach a lesson, divide the students into small groups that then rotate through stations (sometimes called centers) where they practice various skills while working individually with students who need more help.

Effectively guiding a group of 6-year-olds demands thorough knowledge of the science of reading, careful planning, teacher-led data collection, and strong classroom management. However, the pipeline of teachers arriving at schools already equipped with these skills has slowed to a trickle.

The 15 to 30 extra minutes that students receive outside the regular reading block are where you also begin to see capacity problems. Schools that have multiple teachers per grade often build in about 45 minutes each day to work with those students. Often, students are grouped and regrouped based on teacher assessments of students’ skill deficits. Students without deficits should be provided with an activity that allows them to advance their learning. Different teachers work with different groups of students for the day. For example, Teacher A might take all the students who are reading at grade level and teach lessons designed to extend their learning. The other three teachers each teach a different concept and work with groups of students who need help with that particular skill.

At the end of every week, all students take a scored assessment, and teachers regroup for the next week’s instruction.

Conversely, small schools that may have only one or two teachers per grade level often build in an additional 45-minute reading block, either at the end of the 90-minute block or at another time of day, and one teacher works with multiple groups of students based on need.

Doing this well takes time, planning, and expertise—now imagine teachers doing it with nearly half their students!

Mississippi achieved great results, but its approach was slightly different from ours in Oklahoma.

Mississippi and Oklahoma both built K–3 literacy systems around screening, intervention, and the science of reading. The key difference lies in capacity-building: Mississippi focused on state-supported coaching, training, and support for school implementation, while Oklahoma emphasized compliance, setting specific percentile triggers, and requiring intervention timelines in its Strong Readers framework.

Mississippi’s system allows more local professional judgment within MTSS, requiring an Individual Reading Plan only for students with significant reading deficiencies, as identified through the district’s MTSS process using multiple data points after screening and diagnostics. In contrast, Oklahoma requires an SLIP for every student who scores below the 40th percentile on an approved screening test.

Oklahoma’s Strong Readers framework is more prescriptive, setting explicit statewide thresholds for intervention: Tier 1 applies to students at or above the 40th percentile; Tier 1 with differentiation for those at the 26th–39th percentile; Tier 2 for the 11th–25th percentile; and Tier 3 for the 1st–10th percentile. Oklahoma also specifies required time: at least 15 minutes daily for Tier 2 (in addition to Tier 1), and at least 30 minutes for Tier 3. In contrast, Mississippi leaves both the scheduling and identification of students needing support to local discretion.

Oklahoma has invested money in Strong Readers, and OSDE says districts receiving more than $2,500 in Strong Readers funds must spend 10% on science-of-reading professional development. However, there hasn’t been enough investment in building out professional development providers. For a short while, the state was providing training in LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling). However, funding for the latest cohort of teachers ran out, leaving them in limbo and wondering whether they will be able to complete the training.

Over the past 10 years, Mississippi has built a team of literacy coaches embedded in schools across the state. These coaches worked with literacy support schools, providing on-site training, modeling research-based reading instruction, conducting learning walks, and coaching teachers. By 2022–23, Mississippi had 52 state-hired literacy coaches deployed to 86 public schools, according to reporting based on MDE information. Mississippi’s own documents describe literacy coaches as part of a statewide effort to strengthen teacher capacity, not merely to comply with intervention rules. Oklahoma likely needs double that number to match Mississippi’s capacity to address current needs.

To further illustrate the differences in support and scale, take a look at the chart below.

State	Public-school students	School districts	State literacy funding	Literacy funding per student
Oklahoma	697,358	541	$17.5 million	about $25.09
Mississippi	431,931	141	$15 million recurring	about $34.73

Oklahoma serves far more students than Mississippi and has well over three times as many school districts (541 in Oklahoma versus 141 in Mississippi). While Oklahoma’s total Strong Readers allocation is slightly larger in terms of total dollars, Mississippi provides more recurring literacy funding per student—about $34.73 versus Oklahoma’s $25.09. In summary, Mississippi provides a stronger per-student funding base for literacy reforms while operating through fewer districts. Oklahoma, in contrast, implements a capacity-intensive reading law across more students and districts but with less per-pupil literacy funding, likely making it harder to deliver consistent statewide staffing, coaching, and intervention support.

Teaching is hard work, and it’s even harder when you are trying to catch up a large number of students who are behind. Oklahoma already has a teacher shortage. For FY25, Oklahoma had 1,329 teachers certified through the Career Development Program, the alternative route used for early childhood and elementary education. We run a real risk of overburdening teachers and ending up with a system that is more focused on compliance than on helping students if we don’t invest enough to build the capacity needed to meet our goals.