As of 2026, some 43 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented statewide policies designed to promote evidence-based reading instruction and other programs to boost student literacy. Sparked by the "Science of Reading" movement, these states have worked to reshape how reading is taught.1 With this level of policy commitment and concurrent public investment, it is important to inform state and local policymakers and education leaders about the types of state-level programs that have had positive impacts and some of the key program levers that have propelled these successes and maximized the value of the state’s resource investment.
Colorado’s Early Literacy Grant program is an example of such success as part of its statewide, K-3 literacy program created by the state legislature in 2012 through passage of the Reading to Ensure Academic Development (READ) Act. Colorado’s READ Act focuses on improving K-3 reading instruction and student performance. It includes multiple components, including mandating creation of reading plans for students who are struggling to reach expected literacy performance targets, providing funding for implementing such plans, requiring the adoption of approved, science-based reading curricula, and establishing a competitive grant program (Early Literacy Grants – or ELGs) for school districts to apply for state funding directly tied to improving literacy instruction.
ELG funds can be used for a variety of activities. Schools can use grants to cover the cost of literacy-focused staff (typically reading coaches), purchase of external literacy consultant time, literacy curricular materials, and other purchases that target improved K-3 reading instruction.2 Funds may only supplement, not supplant funds currently used for this purpose.
APA Consulting, as part of a research team with WestEd and RTI, was hired by the Colorado Department of Education in 2019 to conduct a six-year evaluation of the READ Act, including the ELG program. This evaluation focused not only on studying impacts of the program, but also specific program implementation characteristics that led to successes or challenges in schools. APA was tasked with leading the evaluation of the ELGs across the state. Our analysis was based on site visit interviews and focus groups with school and district leaders, teachers, reading coaches, and external literacy consultants in urban, rural, and suburban schools each year for six years, across every region of the state.
Overall findings were that the grants: 1) Were highly impactful on teachers and students; 2) Were viewed as effective in improving educator use of data to inform instruction as well as improving educator knowledge of the science of teaching reading; and 3) Produced changes in educator practice that were reported to lead to marked improvements in student performance on interim reading assessments, with such improvements in some cases happening in less than one school year of grant implementation.
Since so many states have moved towards adoption of statewide policies to improve literacy instruction and student performance and have made substantial concurrent commitments of staffing and taxpayer dollars, it is important to share some of the key program implementation lessons learned from evaluating Colorado’s program. Implementation components identified as key to program success were:
Colorado’s program mandated that district grantees use a portion of grant funds to bring in external literacy consultants into schools. This was universally viewed by grant participants as the most impactful component of the grant. External consultants visited schools in person at least once per month over multiple years and were tasked: 1) training literacy coaches in schools on how to work with K-3 teachers on using data to inform instruction; 2) helping teachers develop common language and consistent practices pertaining to literacy instruction across grades and classrooms; and 3) going into classrooms to observe and model instruction and provide feedback directly to teachers, which also gave consultants an understanding of the unique characteristics of the student populations served.
Successful grantees used some grant funds to support hiring either a part- or full-time school-level reading coach who was in the building to work with teachers and reinforce the practices taught by the external literacy consultant when that consultant was not in the building. This created a powerful team that was universally viewed as critical to grant success, because schools needed external literacy-focused expertise (the consultant) to align their practices with evidence-based reading practices, while teachers also needed a continual resource in the building (the literacy coach) who focused on reinforcing new instruction practices when the consultant was not in the building. This pairing was therefore critical to ensure new practices and routines became embedded in teachers’ work.
The multiyear nature of ELGs (grants are typically awarded for a four-year period with the potential for schools to apply for an additional fifth year “sustainability grant” to help sustain progress) was critical to ensuring the program was not viewed by teachers and school staff as a “one and done” intervention. In other words, the multiyear nature reflected to leaders and teachers that the grant represented a substantial commitment from the state and gave them the time needed to adjust practice guided by external consultants, and to embed these changes into routines. This helped overcome initial teacher resistance to change which was reported in some schools. The multiyear format also distinguished the grants from what teachers and leaders often reported as “typical models of professional development” that revolve around limited numbers of presentations or conferences that do not result in lasting impacts on practice.
Use of a competitive process for awarding grants was viewed generally as having a positive impact in improving school and district buy-in since leaders were required to author the grants themselves and could customize the focus to best meet the needs of a particular school. Such buy-in was even further enhanced when there was inclusion of teachers and instructional leaders in both the decision to apply for the grant and the design of the grant application.
There were numerous other learnings from our work evaluating Colorado’s READ Act program. Each of the evaluation reports over the past six years can be found here: https://ed.cde.state.co.us/coloradoliteracy/read-act-independent-evaluation-of-colorado-read. The state’s investment in the evaluation proved to be valuable on multiple levels. Findings were presented to the State Board of Education each year, and the Colorado Department of Education used the work to inform state leaders regarding the program’s value. Findings were also used to inform continuous program improvements – such as suggested refinements to the process for matching external literacy consultants with schools to ensure a strong fit – that would not have been possible without the investment in evaluation site visits that allowed educators and consultants in the field to independently and anonymously report on what successes and challenges.
Other state leaders can learn from Colorado’s experience to maximize the impacts of their own programs by taking such steps as:
Include a competitive grant process that gives districts and schools the ability to tailor use of funds to their specific needs.
Include educator voice in the grant application process so that teachers and leaders buy-in to the grant goals and design.
Make the grants multiyear (preferably 3-5) to ensure they are not perceived as “one and done” approaches.
Require use of funds to pay for external experts to come into schools on a particular topic and couple this with funding to support year-round coaching FTE to reinforce the external experts’ work.
Include external evaluation of the grant program to help inform improvements and identify successes and challenges over time.
It should be noted that these implementation lessons apply not only to reading-focused programs but to any topic designed to impact instruction in schools. This is notable for instance, as 23 states have passed laws or new policies since 2022 focused on math instruction. Helping states, districts, and schools replicate successes learned – and avoid challenges or mistakes made – is central to the role of program evaluation and to APA’s mission, and our work in Colorado can further inform the field in this regard. Get in touch here — and in the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn for more.
Dale DeCesare, Senior Advisor, has 24 years of education policy experience. He conducts qualitative and quantitative analyses to help inform local, state, and federal education leaders about the implementation and impacts of a variety of early childhood education, K-12, and higher education programs. He has led research and evaluation projects at all levels of rigor, including a randomized controlled trial study for the U.S. Department of Education, as well as a variety of quasi-experimental design studies, case studies, and qualitative research.
Dale DeCesare can be reached via email at dmd@apaconsulting.net.