As Massachusetts pushes toward a statewide shift to phonics-based, state-approved reading instruction, Marlborough Public Schools is showing how policy ambitions meet classroom realities.
Marlborough educators embraced structured literacy ahead of the state, but they still face the task of improving standardized test results in a community where most students are learning English alongside grade-level material.
The statewide effort advanced in late October, when the House unanimously approved an early literacy reform bill requiring districts to use the state’s definition of “evidence-based” reading curricula — programs that explicitly teach phonics, or the sound-letter relationships students use to decode words. The bill would also ban “three-cueing,” an approach that encourages students to guess at unfamiliar words.
The Senate is expected to take up the measure when formal sessions resume in January, potentially positioning schools for significant changes as soon as next fall.
Marlborough, however, has been moving in that direction for several years. Interim Superintendent of Schools Jason DeFalco said the district does not expect “significant changes” under the legislation, noting it began its elementary literacy overhaul well before the state signaled it would do the same.
“MPS was far ahead of this mandate,” DeFalco said. “We are in our third year of high-quality instructional material and for years had a phonics program supplement.”
Marlborough implements structured literacy program
At the elementary level, the district uses HMH Into Reading as its core English language arts curriculum. The program covers reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing — the “reading to learn” side of literacy.
This year, Marlborough replaced its longtime phonics supplement, Fundations, with HMH’s structured literacy component, which provides systematic instruction in early reading skills such as phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds), decoding and the sound-letter patterns. These skills form the “learning to read” foundation before students move on to comprehension.
“We were using Fundations for quite some time,” DeFalco said. “The idea was to find a better complement to HMH.”
He added that many commercial core literacy programs “are not strong enough with the phonics (and) phonemic awareness piece,” prompting many districts to adopt a separate foundational-skills program to ensure students receive systematic, explicit instruction in decoding.
The district is still early in its implementation of both programs and DeFalco noted that new instructional models often come with an “implementation dip,” where performance may stagnate or decline in the first few years as teachers and students adjust.
“It really does take between three to five years to start seeing results,” he said.
District has ground to make up in standardized testing results
The latest MCAS results from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education underscore the district’s challenge.
This year, 26% of Marlborough students in grades 3-8 met expectations in English Language Arts, compared with 42% statewide. Math performance tracked a similar gap, with 23% meeting expectations versus 41% statewide.
Student growth percentiles — 48 in ELA and 50 in math — were around the state average, indicating steady progress, but not the accelerated gains needed to narrow achievement gaps.
MCAS offers one snapshot of student achievement, though its usefulness is limited by timing — results arrive months after students have already advanced to the next grade. Once scores are released, Marlborough educators review them for broad patterns and for individual learning gaps, working with receiving-grade teachers to determine what support students will need in the year ahead.
The makeup of Marlborough’s student population also shapes its literacy landscape. Sixty percent of Marlborough Public Schools students speak a first language other than English, and about 35% are enrolled in the district’s English learner program. Reaching English proficiency typically takes six years or more, according to DeFalco — a timeline that complicates how quickly improvements in foundational reading skills appear on standardized tests.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” the superintendent said. “Students aren’t going to meet grade-level expectations in literacy unless they’re also advancing in their language acquisition.”
Students show progress in language proficiency, biliteracy
For that reason, the district relies heavily on WIDA ACCESS tests, the state’s annual English-language proficiency exam. Lynne Medaille, director of English language education, recently reported that all grade bands improved in making progress on ACCESS, and most maintained or improved their proficiency levels.
Marlborough also saw its highest number of students earn the State Seal of Biliteracy last year, a recognition of high-level proficiency in two languages.
For DeFalco, those results provide critical context as the district continues to implement its literacy programs.
“We are staying the course with the good work we have already begun,” he said. “We know that children learn literacy best when there is a strong balance between phonics, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, fluency, writing and vocabulary. Our daily literacy structure provides MPS’ youngest learners just that.”
Final compliance will depend on the DESE’s interpretation of the bill. Even so, Marlborough educators believe their layered approach — explicit phonics instruction delivered alongside a core ELA curriculum — already tracks with the state’s anticipated direction.