HB0142

Establishes a comprehensive literacy screening, assessment, and intervention program for students in kindergarten through grade five, including requirements for evidence-based instruction, professional development, and reporting.

• Defines 'reading difficulties' as conditions or patterns that interfere with accurate and fluent word recognition, spelling, or comprehension, including dyslexia and developmental language disorder. (W.S. 21-3-402(a))
• Requires each school district to implement literacy screening assessments and multi-tiered systems of support using state-approved instruments, administered three times per year to all kindergarten through grade three students and below-proficient grade four and five students. (W.S. 21-3-402(b))
• Requires school districts to provide screening results to parents, place at-risk students in evidence-based interventions with parental consent, maintain individual reading plan records, and ensure interventions do not occur during core literacy instruction time. (W.S. 21-3-402(c))
• Requires school districts to implement evidence-based core literacy instruction covering phonological awareness, decoding and encoding, reading comprehension, language comprehension and vocabulary, oral reading fluency, and written expression across specified grade levels. (W.S. 21-3-402(e))
• Requires annual reporting to the department of education on progress toward achieving eighty percent of grades kindergarten through three students scoring low risk for reading difficulties, with improvement plans required for schools not meeting this goal or showing no improvement over three years. (W.S. 21-3-402(f))
• Directs the state superintendent to promulgate rules establishing criteria for literacy screening assessment selection, identify approved assessment instruments, establish procedures for corrective action on underperforming districts, and collect statewide longitudinal data on specific literacy skill areas. (W.S. 21-3-402(g))
• Requires teachers holding elementary education, early childhood education, or exceptional education endorsements to receive at least fourteen hours of annual professional development in evidence-based literacy instruction until obtaining a structured literacy certificate, dyslexia specialist, or reading endorsement; requires other educators to receive 3.5 hours every three years.