Improving America's Literacy Act

Sponsor: Ted Cruz (Republican-TX)July 23, 2026

AI-generated ?

Report an error

Introduced

In Committee

Passed One Chamber

Passed Both Chambers

Signed into Law

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Federal grants for reading programs would require specific teaching methods and ban others.

This bill would change how reading is taught in schools that get federal money for literacy programs. It would ban a teaching method called 'three-cueing' and require schools to use evidence-based strategies focusing on phonics and other core skills. This affects students, teachers, and state and local education agencies receiving these grants.

What Would Change

Today, federal grants for literacy programs allow various teaching methods, and there are no specific annual review requirements for these grants. If this bill becomes law, schools receiving federal funds would be banned from using the 'three-cueing model' for reading instruction. Instead, they would be required to use evidence-based methods focusing on core reading skills, and the grants would have new rules for their duration, annual reviews, and renewal.

Key Provisions

Bans the 'three-cueing model' — a reading instruction method that uses context, pictures, or sentence structure as the main way to teach word recognition — from being used in federally funded literacy programs.
Requires federal literacy grants to fund only evidence-based teaching methods that focus on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Sets a maximum duration of 5 years for Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grants, with a possible 2-year renewal if states show adequate progress.
Requires the Department of Education to conduct annual reviews of these grants, checking their impact on student reading outcomes and making the findings public.
Clarifies that the bill would not change rights for students with disabilities or allow the federal government to control local school curricula.

View on Congress.gov

S 5110 · 119th Congress · July 23, 2026 · AI Summary by gemini-2.5-flash · 8/10

Improving America's Literacy Act

What Would Change

Key Provisions

Lobbying Activity