Hello, thank you for taking the time to read my testimony. I am here to ask you to support HB2053. My name is Melissa Martin, I am a first year public school teacher from Orange County, Va. I am also a mom to an 11th grade daughter with dyslexia. I am also here in my capacity as an advocate with Decoding Dyslexia Virginia. I hold a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Special Education and Elementary Education that I received in June 2022. My daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia in 2018. Today, after years of advocacy on my part, and a lot of hard work on her part, she is in 11th grade, holding a 3.8 GPA and taking college classes. Because of her struggle I wanted to become a teacher and help kids like her. There was just one problem, my college education did not prepare me to teach children like my daughter. In my courses dyslexia was defined, and I was taught which tests could be given to identify it. There were no lessons on how to teach these students to read, there were no lessons on how to identify dyslexia. Nothing that told me it could be identified as young as 5.5 years old, nothing told me that reading skills needed to be taught a specific way in order for these kids to learn to read. I knew more about how dyslexic kids needed to be taught from my own research to help my daughter than a newly graduated teacher. I found that I knew more than ALL of her special education teachers as well. This is why HB2053 is so necessary! HB2053 asks that the VDOE audit teacher preparatory programs so that they are aligned with the Virginia Literacy Act that the General Assembly passed in 2022. The VLA will do no good if we are not training future teachers correctly. We need to hold our institutions of higher learning accountable, they need to align their instruction with state law. Asking them to “self report” is a joke! Human nature says that we want to hide our mistakes, well thats no different when it comes to our institutions of higher learning. If this bill becomes law then they will be required to change their programs which will cost them money and they don’t like to spend money. Reading should be a civil right no different to freedom of speech. Without the ability to read a person is doomed to failure. By ensuring our students are good readers we ensure no only their future but our own. Let’s ensure our new teachers are fully trained to teach students to read instead of doing what we do now, and that is constantly “playing catch up” by asking teachers to take time from the students and their own families to go back and learn how to teach these kids to read. In speaking with my colleagues last week they are all frustrated at being asked to teach kids how to read when they do not know how to do this! They were not prepared by their colleges and now are having to take many hours of Professional Development to learn how to do this and it is not in depth enough. Let's start getting ahead by teaching new teachers correctly while we help those who are already teaching with retraining. We are failing our children, we need to remember that they are the future of this state. It is our responsibility to educate them to the best of our ability and prepare them to be the leaders of tomorrow. They cannot lead if they cannot read.

Please support HB2053 When a teacher knows they have successfully taught a child to read, you will keep a teacher in your school system. Please make sure that the curricula provided to our preservice teachers align with the Virginia Literacy Act by periodically reviewing the programs that are taught within Virginia teaching colleges. A principal once expressed to me that reading instruction begins with our teaching colleges. We need to go to the source for our teachers and students, so please support HB2053.

My name is Kelly Huff-Snyder and I am asking you to support HB2053. HB2053 asks that the VDOE audit teacher preparatory programs so that they are aligned with the Virginia Literacy Act that the General Assembly passed in 2022. The VLA will do no good if we are not training future teachers correctly. We need to hold our institutions of higher learning accountable, they need to align their instruction with state law. We can’t wait for them to assure us they are doing the right thing because we continue to have teacher preparation programs that are not adequately training teachers. Instead we are constantly asking teachers to take time from the students and their own families to go back and learn how to teach these kids. Having to retrain teachers is detrimental to students. I removed my children from public school because they were not getting what they needed academically and by having them fall behind, it hurt them psychologically. We had some very nice teachers in public school but they can’t teach what they do not know. Reading is fundamental to all subjects including math and if our elementary teachers do not know how to teach reading then you are doing a disservice to the students. All of this re-training takes time but it also takes money and in this day and age we don’t have the money to be spending on what teachers should already know. Please do the right thing and hold higher institutions accountable for preparing our teachers.

We don’t have time to spare in getting Virginia Colleges and Universities on board with ensuring they teach our educators instruction based on the Science of Reading and can properly identify students with learning disabilities. I am one of many parents who spent thousands of dollars having to hire tutors to teach my son how to read. I hope we can change that for future generations and that the burden of having teachers properly educated is on the Universities and colleges, not school districts having to fill the gaps in their education (which is what is happening now). Thank you for your support!

I am the Chair of the LCPS School Board and a parent leader with Decoding Dyslexia Virginia. Please support and pass Delegate Reaser’s proposed bill HB2053 (2025) and put “more teeth” into prior legislation passed in 2022 (HB419); by requiring an appropriate active baseline audit of the education preparation programs complete with a rubric, accompanying metrics, and report to the Education Committees. The problems we have with literacy instruction started in higher education and that is where they must be fixed before we see any kind of movement in NAEP or SOL. If preservice teachers do not come out of educator prep programs (EPP) prepared to teach reading, then we are throwing away taxpayer money and undercutting the Virginia Literacy Act (VLA). My son, who is dyslexic, was one of the millions of students not identified Virginia’s balanced literacy screener PALS because it was not aligned with the science of reading. When finally flagged in 2nd grade, he wasn’t provided appropriate early intervention because his reading specialists used “reading recovery.” He was initially found “not eligible” for SpEd because LCPS assessors didn’t know what to look for in assessments. I fought for eligibility. Even still, he was not provided appropriate specialized instruction because his SpEd teachers were not familiar with science of reading. My journey is not unique. I paid for advocates, private evaluations, tutors, and finally private school in the middle of 7th grade because our teachers didn’t learn about how to screen, intervene or teach reading using evidence-based, structured literacy instruction including systematic, explicit, cumulative teaching and science-based reading research in EPP. I have spent almost 10 years of my life working with DDVA to write, advocate and pass bipartisan literacy bills: 1. Dyslexia training modules (2016, HB842) 2. Dyslexia advisor bill (2017, SB1516) 3. Reading specialist bill (2018, SB368) - a total bust due to higher ed self-report “assurance forms” with no accountability. 4. PALS screener workgroup bill (2019, SB1718). I also participated in the workgroup. 5. Parent notification of literacy screening and intervention bill (2020, HB410) 6. SCHEV workgroup bill (2020, HB904) designed to help higher ed discuss and figure out science of reading instruction and how to provide it in their EPP. 7. Science of reading intervention bill K-3 (2021, HB1865) 8. Reading recovery removal from add on funds bill (2022, HB418) 9. HB419 (2022) working in combination with HB319 (2022) VLA requiring a 7-year literacy audit of EPP, (predecessor to Delegate Reaser’s current proposed bill HB2053.) Last year, as a School Board member, I still had to vote to provide 4 more days of professional development for our teachers to learn the science of reading. K-12 public schools are having to bend over backwards to replace balanced literacy curriculum and resources, un-train and re-train general education teachers, reading specialists, English language specialists, special educators, and administrators. We are continuing to put the financial burden on the backs of taxpayers and oftentimes, at the mental and physical expense of K-12 staff, when the problems could be solved, or significantly reduced, if issues were addressed upstream: in the college prep programs responsible for educating our teachers BEFORE they begin their careers. It is time to move past higher ed resistance and truly hold them accountable.