Read On, Sonoma!, a literacy program, has doubled the number of elementary students with personalized reading goals this year, thanks to expanded partnerships with local schools. The program, which is credited with significantly improving students' reading comprehension rates, now includes every elementary school in Windsor Unified School District in California, as well as schools in the Roseland and Wright districts.

The Sioux Falls School District's pilot of the University of Florida Literacy Institute approach is yielding promising results, with 82% of kindergarteners meeting or exceeding benchmarks on Measures of Academic Progress assessments, compared with 74% of those not using the curriculum. The program began in 2023 and will expand to second grade this year and continue in kindergarten and first grade.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools has launched its first universal intervention program to support students with dyslexia, aiming to provide targeted reading help to nearly 5,000 children who show signs of the learning disability. The district will screen more students for dyslexia characteristics and implement small group tutoring sessions to address gaps in foundational reading skills and boost performance on state assessments.

Students at Young Women's STEAM Research and Preparatory Academy in El Paso, Texas, praise their school librarian, Pete Biddle, for fostering a love of reading and creating a welcoming library environment. Through the BookNappers Book Club, which focuses on banned books, Biddle encourages critical thinking and exposes students to diverse perspectives.

A Connecticut law requires school districts to implement policies for handling challenges to library materials, following a surge in book challenges since the pandemic. Last year, 38% of nationwide book challenges were in school libraries, according to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. The law mandates policies on collection development, library displays and material review, with input from educators and librarians.

H-E-B and the Kendra Scott Foundation have opened the first of six Yellow Libraries at Camino Real Elementary School in Dale, Texas, as part of the Kendra Scott Yellow Library Initiative to provide multicultural and bilingual books to Title I elementary schools. The initiative has supplied more than 250 books to the school, including a bookshelf and a literacy grant.

Superintendent turnover among the 500 largest US school districts has increased to 23%, up from 20% the previous year and 15% before the pandemic, according to the ILO Group. A notable trend is a rise in female superintendents, who now make up a third of district leaders, although at the current rate, it will take 30 years for gender parity, experts note.

Delaware has allocated $8 million to an emergency literacy fund for literacy coaches, instructional materials and teacher grants amid flat statewide assessment scores. The initiative, driven by Gov. Matt Mayer's declaration of a literacy emergency, aims to boost early literacy by supporting teachers and providing high-quality classroom materials.