ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — As students head back to school across New York State, classrooms are also going back to basics. Following a 2024 decision from the Board of Regents, later written into the state budget, districts are now required to incorporate phonics-based systems into early reading instruction.

The shift comes amid years of declining literacy rates, which worsened after remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more than a decade, many districts followed Columbia University Teachers College methods that emphasized memorization and context clues. Phonics, by contrast, focuses on building reading skills through the relationship between letters and sounds.

“We always look at it as the mechanics of learning to read, the sounding out, the basics, starting with letters and

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