The Tennessee State Board of Education’s English Language Arts Standards Recommendation Committee met Sept. 5 and heard a detailed presentation from educator advisory team (EAT) chairs on proposed revisions to the K–12 ELA standards that center the “science of reading,” clearer vertical alignment and grade-specific expectations.

The proposed revisions were described as intended to align Tennessee instruction to research on how children learn to read and to make expectations clearer for teachers. Michael Duerlein, deputy executive director of policy and research with the State Board of Education, told the committee that the process is “driven by educators in the public” and called the standards-review process “one of the most transparent” in the country.

The EAT chairs described three organizing priorities behind the draft standards. “Our three guiding goals today are to explain how to analyze the standards in practice, how the SDC developed revisions, and why vertical alignment is essential for student growth from year to year,” said Nicole Moore, a sixth-grade teacher and one of the EAT chairs. The chairs said each proposed change was based on classroom practice, research and public feedback collected during two rounds of surveys.

Why it matters: The committee is drafting standards that will guide curriculum, instruction and state assessment for more than 1 million Tennessee students for the next implementation cycle. The chairs said clearer grade-level expectations and better vertical progression are intended to reduce gaps and improve student outcomes statewide.

What the chairs presented
- Science of reading: The draft standards assert that reading instruction must be systematic and aligned with current research. The chairs referenced Scarborough’s reading rope as the organizing model for aligning foundational skills (phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency) with language comprehension (vocabulary, background knowledge, reasoning).
- Cornerstones and vertical alignment: The draft introduces “cornerstones” — long-term, grade-span benchmarks — and asks committees to check that grade-level standards explicitly contribute to those cornerstones so skills build logically year to year.
- Foundational literacy (K–2): Chairs said foundational literacy standards were rewritten to make explicit, grade-specific expectations (for example, decoding and encoding standards were paired to emphasize reciprocity). The chairs noted added specificity about when and how foundational phonics should be taught.
- Elementary (grades 3–5): The draft expands explicit expectations for informational reading and cross‑curricular texts to strengthen content knowledge building in social studies and science.
- Middle grades (6–8): The proposal gives each middle grade a primary writing focus (narrative for 6th, informative for 7th, argumentative for 8th), and makes figurative language and note‑taking skills grade-specific and progressively complex.
- High school (9–12): The chairs proposed reformatting banded standards (for example, 9–10 vs. 11–12) to use course labels (English I, English II, etc.) to increase clarity when students take courses off grade level. Speaking and listening standards were revised to elevate listening and note‑taking and to require more purposeful uses of multimedia.
- Electives: Creative writing, journalism, speech, visual literacy and etymology/linguistics standards were updated with more precise verbs and examples; journalism standards were adjusted to allow multi-level classes (journalism 1–4) taught concurrently.

Discussion and questions
Committee members pressed for clarity on grade-specific grammar expectations and paragraph-length guidance. One member asked why some grammar items (for example, pronouns or specific punctuation) were moved earlier in the K–12 trajectory; the chairs said those moves reflect decisions about the appropriate grade for mastery versus reinforcement and that they would supply more detailed rationale and notes during the upcoming workdays.

On writing length and structure, several teachers and committee members asked for clearer guidance on how many paragraphs or how much student writing is expected at each grade. Tammy Marlow, a high school teacher and EAT chair, said middle-school writing would “go deeper” rather than “brush the surface,” and that the proposed grade-by-grade focus was intended to create time for students to master each mode.

No formal action was taken on the standards at the Sept. 5 meeting; committee members will review the draft text in a series of in-person working sessions next week and are expected to record specific edits and votes during that work period.

Ending
The committee will reconvene in person for multi-day work sessions beginning next week; chairs and State Department of Education staff will be on site to answer content questions and provide background materials. The draft standards and supporting documents were placed in the committee’s shared drive for members to review prior to the working sessions.