Federal education officials have been increasingly vocal this year about what they describe as a literacy emergency, pointing to national reading scores at historic lows and citing findings that a meaningful share of fourth and eighth graders cannot read proficiently. In response, the Department of Education has directed nearly $500 million in grant funding over the past two years specifically toward approaches with demonstrated evidence of improving reading outcomes, spanning tutoring models, professional development, and, notably, a record number of grants awarded directly to state educational agencies to lead their own evidence-based literacy implementation.

This federal emphasis, and the state-level funding and professional development infrastructure it's building out, most immediately targets foundational reading instruction, phonics, decoding, and structured literacy approaches primarily aimed at early elementary grades. But the broader literacy infrastructure this investment is building, coaching networks, evidence review processes, state-level implementation support, has real, if less immediately visible, implications for writing instruction as well, since reading and writing achievement are so closely intertwined that a genuine, sustained improvement in one is likely to create better conditions for the other over time.

For writing teachers and departments, particularly those in states receiving significant literacy investment through this federal push, this is worth watching closely, both because state literacy initiatives sometimes expand their scope over time to explicitly include writing instruction, and because the underlying skills being targeted, foundational reading fluency and comprehension, are genuine prerequisites for the kind of evidence-based, source-engaged writing this week's PISA data also identifies as an area of concern.

Why foundational reading investment matters for writing outcomes down the line

Students who struggle with foundational reading fluency in elementary grades carry that struggle forward into the more demanding reading and source-engagement tasks that strong writing instruction depends on in later grades. A serious, well-resourced investment in evidence-based early reading instruction, if genuinely effective over time, should produce a downstream benefit for writing instruction several years later: students arriving in upper elementary and secondary writing classrooms with stronger foundational reading skills to build evidence-based, source-engaged writing instruction on top of.

• Track whether your own state is among those receiving significant federal literacy investment this year, and what that funding is specifically targeting
• Watch for state literacy initiatives that expand scope over time to explicitly include writing instruction, not just foundational reading
• Recognize the downstream connection between early reading investment and later writing instruction, even when writing isn't the direct target
• Engage with state-level literacy coaching and professional development resources where available, even as a writing-focused educator
• Advocate, where appropriate, for writing instruction to be explicitly considered as this broader literacy infrastructure continues developing

What this means for departments planning ahead

Secondary writing departments have a genuine interest in this federal and state-level literacy investment even though it's not primarily targeted at their own grade levels, both because of the downstream skill-building connection and because state literacy initiatives sometimes evolve over multi-year timelines to encompass a broader K-12 scope. Staying informed about your own state's specific literacy initiative, rather than assuming it's purely an elementary-grades concern, is a worthwhile use of attention for secondary writing departments thinking about the pipeline of students they'll be receiving in future years.

This is also a reasonable moment for writing departments to consider whether there's a case for connecting explicitly with their state's literacy office or initiative, both to stay informed and to potentially advocate for writing-specific extensions of this broader literacy investment as it continues to develop.

A long-term investment worth tracking

This federal literacy push represents a genuinely significant, multi-year investment in foundational reading skill, and its eventual payoff, if the evidence-based approaches being funded prove as effective as intended, should show up not just in reading scores but in the quality of writing instruction built on top of stronger foundational reading several years from now. That's a long horizon, but it's worth writing departments tracking this investment now rather than only when its effects become directly visible in their own classrooms.