Reading is the most important skill a child can learn. Without it, everything else becomes harder—school, work, even basic independence. A child who can’t read well is at a serious disadvantage, and too often, that disadvantage follows them for life. It doesn’t just affect their grades—it affects their ability to get a job, manage money, or navigate everyday responsibilities. And eventually, it impacts how well they’re able to provide for their own future family.

Illiteracy compounds. When a child grows up without the tools to succeed, the cycle repeats. What starts as an education issue becomes a generational crisis.

This isn’t just an education issue—it’s a family issue. Every parent wants their child to thrive. Every child deserves the chance to flourish. And at the very foundation of that hope is literacy. Without it, opportunity shrinks and discouragement grows—not just in one life, but often in the lives that follow.

Every parent can—and should—read to their child. Reading together for just 15 to 20 minutes a day builds vocabulary, imagination, and a love for learning. But most parents aren’t trained to teach phonemic awareness or decoding skills. That’s where our schools and teachers come in. Families can lay the foundation, but for many Oklahoma families, it’s the classroom that must deliver the instruction. And if our teacher-prep programs are sending new educators into schools with broken methods, we are failing the very families who trust the system to fill in the gaps.

That’s why it’s so disheartening that in 2025—after the Oklahoma Legislature had already banned three-cueing in public schools—Oklahoma State University’s College of Education was still promoting Reading Recovery, a program grounded in the very methods lawmakers and researchers have rejected. Three-cueing teaches children to guess words based on pictures or context instead of decoding them phonetically. It’s not only ineffective—it’s harmful.

And OSU didn’t stop using it because the research changed. They didn’t stop because it was the right thing to do. They only announced they would phase it out after the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) brought public attention to the issue.

That matters. Because when a taxpayer-funded institution only changes course once the public is watching, you have to question its motivations. Were they committed to doing what’s best for children—or simply trying to avoid public scrutiny?

Universities are responsible for preparing tomorrow’s teachers. The stakes couldn’t be higher. As OCPA President Jonathan Small rightly said, it makes no sense that a public university would continue promoting a program like Reading Recovery after three-cueing had been explicitly banned in public schools. And if any such programs remain in use at other institutions, Oklahoma’s college regents must act swiftly to ensure no more taxpayer dollars support them.

In contrast, Oklahoma is advancing structured literacy—an approach rooted in the science of reading. Through statewide initiatives like LETRS training, a team of HEROES literacy coaches, and the Amira K–5 screener, the Oklahoma State Department of Education—alongside the Oklahoma Legislature—is ensuring that teachers are equipped with the knowledge and tools to help every student learn to read. 

Over the past two and a half years working within the Oklahoma State Department of Education, I saw firsthand how committed Oklahoma’s leadership is to getting this right. Reading proficiency has been a central focus, and the efforts have been strategic, urgent, and unapologetically student-centered.

But there’s still more work to do. One of the most critical next steps is ending social promotion. If a child cannot read, he or she should not be passed on to the next grade. Full stop. It does far more harm than good to promote students who are unprepared. Reading is too foundational—too essential—to be treated like just another subject. We must have the courage to say that students need to master this skill before advancing further in their academic careers. Otherwise, we’re only setting them up to fall further behind.

Reading isn’t optional. It’s not a bonus skill for the gifted or privileged. It’s the gateway to everything else. And when we ignore that truth, it’s kids who pay the price—not just today, but for generations to come.

We can and must do better.