In the last few years, more than 40 states have enacted Science of Reading legislation, establishing universal literacy screening as the starting point for nationwide literacy improvement. It’s a monumental legislative achievement. But as any educator or system leader knows, legislation is just the foundation. 

The current reality in many districts is that we have more data than ever, and a translation failure to match. Screeners tell us who is at risk. What’s missing is the mechanism that tells a teacher what to do next. 

The Thermometer Problem

Screeners are, by design, thermometers. They flag statistical risk in minutes and are generally stronger at assessing foundational skills than complex reading tasks. What a screener cannot do is diagnose a reading disability, replace a second-stage diagnostic, or evaluate teacher effectiveness.

The problem arises when we treat the screener as an instructional plan. When a teacher receives a data point—”low phonemic awareness,” for example—with no explicit protocol connecting that signal to the day’s instruction, the data becomes compliance noise instead of instructional clarity. Districts end up with dashboards or reports full of risk flags and no reliable path from flag to lesson plan.

Coherence Is a System. Not a Screener. 

To close this gap, we recommend focusing on the connective between the law and the classroom: clear guidance on what a screener result actually means, a reliable next step when a student is flagged and the time and support for teachers to act on what the data tells them.

Right now, that connective tissue is often missing. States have been precise about which screener to use and when. They’ve been far less precise about what should happen the moment a flag appears—which is exactly the moment that matters most to a teacher and a student.

A Call to Action for Funders and Leaders

If we want to change literacy trajectories, we have to stop funding new tools or solutions in isolation and start funding alignment. That means investing in the parts of the system that are part of the sausage making instead of a new shiny tool: clear guidance connecting screener results to instructional next steps, the coaching and planning time teachers need to act on data and the follow-through that turns a risk flag into a rehearsed classroom response.

At Education First, we believe the highest-leverage work available right now is building literacy systems as one coherent pathway—from statehouse to schoolhouse. And unlike much of the narrative in the field, we believe literacy reform is a marathon, not a miracle: the places seeing literacy gains are the ones investing steadily in that coherence, even when it’s less visible than passing a new law.

The laws are written. Now let’s build the systems that make those laws count in the classroom.