Most legislative committees are finishing their work on bills in the houses of origin this week at the State Capitol. This is the time when thousands of bills die without ever being considered.

What certainly will move forward though is a host of ideas to improve children’s literacy rates. Many members of the legislative leadership have bills they hope will help younger children who are not reading at grade level by third grade and improve math comprehension among students at older grade levels.

Most agree that students must “learn to read before they read to learn.” To achieve this, no law can fix the initial problem. Parents must read with their children long before they enter Kindergarten or Pre-K, and reading with their children should continue as a daily ritual during the school year when parents help children with their homework.

According to a National Literacy Trust study from 2024, 50.5% of parents read with their children daily, a 15-point drop from 2019. While daily reading is lower, most parents do read to their children, but often on a less consistent basis (weekly rather than daily).

Likewise, while 73% to 77% of parents with children under five begin reading to their children before age one, the frequency often drops as children get older.

Equally concerning is that an estimated 39% of American nine-year-olds in 2022 reported that they read for fun almost every day, which is down from 53% in 2012, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In that same survey, just 14% of 13-year-olds surveyed reported reading for fun almost daily, down from 27% in 2012.

Many folks yearn to return to the days when they were in school or for an idealistic visualization of schools prior to their time. The fact is times have changed, and certainly not always for the better.

Families today face issues at a higher rate than previous generations, such as an increase in single- parent homes, a struggle for households to keep up with bills that necessitate not only parents working longer hours in jobs, but sometimes for their children to contribute financially with the jobs they hold.

There was a time when a single income could support a family. Wages have not kept up with prices and now it takes two or more incomes to meet most families’ needs. On top of that, scarce access to health insurance, and identified struggles with those in the household, such as mental health issues or addiction, are also obstacles to student success.

So, I wonder, are we asking teachers today to do more with the children coming to them when students are not as prepared to learn as in the past? Sadly, the answer is, “Yes.” I hope this reality is weighed by lawmakers when considering legislation they hope improves students’ reading comprehension or face grade-level retention.

There are many ideas other than educational issues gaining traction at the State Capitol, and we at the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) are directly engaged with several of these issues.

Guided by the “Children’s Legislative Agenda” developed from concepts shared by advocates at our Fall Forum policy conference, we are working with lawmakers on a host of subjects. OICA is also lending support to other ideas through collaborative efforts with partner organizations who also engage at the State Capitol. We need your help to see success though.

I want to invite each of you to our Child Advocacy Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol on Tuesday, March 10, which is also the day for our annual chili cook-off for child-serving organizations and advocates. This means if you show up to be a citizen lobbyist that day, you will also get a great meal!

We hope you can schedule the day off and join us as we work together to move great ideas into action to improve the lives of Oklahoma’s children.

The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy was established in 1983 by a group of citizens seeking to create a strong advocacy network that would provide a voice for the needs of children and youth in Oklahoma, particularly those in the state’s care and those growing up amid poverty, violence, abuse and neglect, disparities or other situations that put their lives and future at risk. The OICA’s mission statement is: “Creating awareness, taking action and changing policy to improve the health, safety and well-being of Oklahoma’s children.”