If your child ever learned to read by looking at the picture and guessing the word, that was not a quirk of your child. It was a method, and for decades it was taught to teachers as reading instruction. This week Iowa put down a marker: Central College in Pella confirmed it has now prepared three graduating classes for the state’s Foundations of Reading test, a licensure-track exam Iowa began requiring under a 2024 literacy law. The bet behind that law is blunt. Fixing how children are taught to read has to start one step earlier than the classroom, with the people trained to run it.
Iowa’s new requirement has parents asking what it means for their own children. Here are the questions that come up most.
Common questions
What is the Foundations of Reading test?
Does Iowa require teachers to pass the test to be licensed?
How do I tell whether my child is guessing instead of reading?
My child struggles with reading. What should I do first?
Iowa now tests future teachers on the science of reading before they graduate. But the law requires giving the test, not passing it. Testing the science is not the same as mastering it.
What happened
Central College in Pella, Iowa has now carried three student cohorts through preparation for the state’s Foundations of Reading test. The requirement traces to House File 2618, Gov. Kim Reynolds’ literacy bill, enacted in 2024. It amends Iowa code to require teacher-preparation colleges to administer the Foundations of Reading test, an exam identical to the one Massachusetts has used since 2012, to candidates before they finish their program. The Iowa Department of Education set the passing score at 240 and requires colleges to report every year, by August 1, how many candidates score above, at, or below it. The test covers five endorsement areas, from elementary classroom teaching to reading and special education.
There is a limit worth stating plainly, because it is easy to overstate. Iowa requires colleges to give the test and report the scores. It does not require a candidate to pass it in order to graduate or be licensed. A pass-to-license requirement sat in the original bill and was removed by amendment before the House passed the measure 92-3. So a new Iowa teacher has been tested on the science of reading. That is not the same as having been required to master it.
Central built a one-credit course around the exam, along with a reading-clinic placement where candidates work with children before sitting it, and extra learning modules and a writing requirement for students who do not pass on the first attempt. Papae Wymore, a lecturer in Central’s educator preparation program, took the test herself. “It was important for me to see firsthand what it was like to take the test, as a professor who is providing instruction, guidance and support,” she said. In its first reporting period in 2025, Central reported that 73% of its candidates passed, its own figure rather than a statewide one.
We let students know that this is just one test; it doesn’t define you.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
The frame the science supports
The usual story about the reading wars is a story about curriculum, which books and programs a school buys. The deeper story is about training. For years, teachers were taught an approach called three-cueing, which tells a child to work out an unfamiliar word from three sources at once: the picture, the sense of the sentence, and the first letter or two. It sounds reasonable. It is also, in the words of cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg, “descriptive of how poor readers read.”
Decades of eye-tracking research by Keith Rayner found that skilled readers do not skip and guess their way along. They process nearly every letter, and they lean more on the links between letters and sounds as they get better, not less. Guessing from context is the fallback of a reader who is struggling, not a tool a strong reader reaches for. How reading actually develops is a story of direct, ordered instruction, which is exactly what a test like Iowa’s is trying to put in front of every new teacher.
Here is the part the loudest voices skip. Phonics is necessary, and it is not the whole answer. Phonological processing sits at the root of most reading difficulty, which is why explicit, systematic phonics does so much of the work. But a study of 641 children (Niolaki and colleagues, 2023) found that whole-word skill predicted spelling accuracy better than sound-based skill at every age, because “their” and “there” sound identical and no amount of sounding out reaches the right one. And training future teachers in the science is a start, not a finish. Iowa’s own law shows why: it tests the knowledge without requiring anyone to demonstrate it. A reform that sounds like the end of the reading wars is, up close, a compromise.
Key takeaways
- The fix starts before the classroom: how teachers are trained to teach reading shapes how children learn to read.
- Testing is not passing: Iowa makes colleges give the reading exam and report scores, not pass it for licensure.
- Guessing is not reading: eye-tracking of skilled readers shows they process nearly every letter, not pictures and context.
What it means for your child
You do not choose how your child’s teacher was trained. You do choose whether you notice the pattern and act on it. If your child reads by glancing at the picture, guessing from the first letter, or swapping in a word that fits the story but is not on the page, that is worth your attention. It is not a verdict on how smart your child is. Struggling to read says nothing about intelligence. It is a signal about how they were taught to approach the page.
There is a plain question you are entitled to ask your child’s school: are teachers trained in explicit, systematic phonics? You are also entitled to watch whether reading, spelling and writing are being taught directly rather than guessed at. And if you suspect your child is struggling with reading, whether that points toward dyslexia or something else, a free parent screener asks you about what you already see at home and points you toward where to start. A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations, such as an IEP or 504 plan, or you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause, a professional evaluation is the route to those supports.
The direction of travel is set. Iowa is testing its future teachers. Michigan is moving to require reading-science training for all of its K-5 teachers by the 2031-32 school year. Those are real changes, and they are slow ones. No law reaches your kitchen table this week, and no statewide reform arrives in time for the child sounding out words tonight. That part has always belonged to you.
The Foundations of Reading test is another way Iowa ensures our future teachers are well-equipped to provide high-quality literacy instruction for all students.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Your child is capable of learning to read, and how they were taught first is the thing that needs fixing, not the child. That is the hopeful reading of this news: the problem lives in a method, and a method is something the adults around a child have power over. The villain here was never a teacher. It was a way of teaching reading, guessing words from pictures and context, that outlived the science years ago and still shapes how too many children meet the page. You are the one constant across every classroom your child will ever sit in, which makes you the person best placed to notice and to act. Start the seven-day All-Access trial, where an assessment asks about the systems your child’s reading actually runs on, and a roadmap names what to build first.
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Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- Iowa Department of Education — Central College Sets Foundations of Literacy Instruction for Preservice Teachers
- Iowa Department of Education — Foundations of Reading Test
- Iowa Legislature — House File 2618 (2024)
- Iowa Capital Dispatch — Bill aimed at improving Iowa student literacy passes House
- Michigan Department of Education — Michigan moves toward common science-of-reading training for K-5 teachers
