In 2014, the SC Department of Education launched an initiative called Read to Succeed (R2S). The goal was to improve literacy outcomes for students across the state and ensure that students have the reading skills needed for college, careers, or military readiness. As part of that legislation, higher-education institutions like BJU, which were preparing teachers for licensure, had to provide pre-service training to support this. As a result, a number of existing courses were revised, and some new ones were created. Once these changes were approved by the SC Department of Education and implemented, all teacher education candidates graduated with the R2S Literacy Teacher endorsement in addition to their subject credential.
In the 2024 reauthorization of the R2S Act, there was a shift in focus from the balanced literacy approach to the structured literacy approach which is based on the science of reading. This robust body of research on how to best teach reading points to the effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction.
Dr. Anna Hamrick, associate professor in our Division of Teacher Education, serves as our literacy coordinator and was instrumental in documenting how we will address the new standards so our candidates can continue to be strong supporters of literacy. To address the new standards, significant changes were made to existing literacy courses, including Foundations of Reading, and Content Area Reading and Writing. Students from all programs must complete both courses. Candidates in Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, and Special Education must also take an additional sequence of courses, Instructional Practices and Assessment of Reading I and II. These changes have all been approved by the SCDE and are now being implemented in each of these courses.
Anna is ideally suited to serve in this role as she spent a total of ten years serving as a reading resource teacher on the elementary level. She also completed graduate-level courses exploring the foundations of literacy.
