The Rhode Island Board of Education and the General Assembly place a major emphasis on the critical importance of literacy proficiency for all students. This commitment, on the part of the RIDE and the State of Rhode Island, requires districts to focus intensely on PreK-12 Literacy curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Literacy instruction should reflect confirmed scientific research about literacy development, intervention, and the prevention of reading difficulties. It should be designed to meet individual student needs by being accessible, flexible, and engaging.
This instruction incorporates strategies, methods, and resources that ensure literacy success for all through use of best practice about how students best develop literacy, and how successful programs work to ensure that virtually every student attains proficiency.
In addition, literacy instruction is required beyond the primary years to include a focus on literacy acquisition through grade 12. The belief that students need literacy instruction only in the early grades is being reshaped by the research that literacy learning is an on-going process. Most students refine and rethink their reading preferences during the middle and high school years. They become increasingly more sophisticated readers of informational text and establish their own foundation for lifelong reading habits.
Therefore, all content area teachers must provide and reinforce instruction of literacy skills and strategies that are effective in their subject area.