When Schools Fail, Who Steps Up? A Maine Teacher Fills the Literacy Gap with a Groundbreaking Reading Curriculum

At Raymond Elementary School in Maine, young children gather on a classroom rug to learn the building blocks of reading—breaking words down into their smallest sounds and putting them back together. But this isn’t just another lesson; it’s part of a pioneering curriculum created out of necessity by Kirsten Chansky, an instructional coach who saw her students falling behind because no effective phonemic awareness program existed in her district. Why Hasn’t Washington Fixed This? The story exposes a larger failure: despite decades of research proving that phonemic awareness is foundational for literacy, many schools across America—and here in Maine—have been...