Fulton’s use of literacy coaches could provide a playbook for Georgia
When the timer rings in Erika Jobbers’ kindergarten classroom, her students know exactly what to do. They get up and head to their assigned stations.
Small groups form around the room. Some work on writing letters. Another group works with Jobbers on letter sounds. Some work with a partner. Everyone has a task. When the timer dings again, they switch groups.
Kenyetta Johnson and Megan Kalista, the literacy coaches at Fulton County’s Cliftondale Elementary School in College Park, circle Jobbers’ room and stop to work with students. Their main job, though, is to work with and train teachers. They have a room dedicated to meeting and planning reading lessons with teachers from all grade levels.
“When we’re not meeting with teachers, we’re going in and observing and checking in on teachers working with kids, and … checking the instruction to make sure that it’s (done with) fidelity,” Kalista said.
The fidelity she referenced is to Fulton’s $90 million investment in literacy, made possible by federal relief funds issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students lost ground while attending school remotely and the district saw an opportunity to allocate an unprecedented amount of money into efforts it hopes will pay off for years to come.
Fulton’s plan centers around a body of research called “the science of reading,” which all Georgia districts are now required to follow. The idea is to teach students how to “crack the code” of language. They “decode” words by breaking them into sounds. They “encode” them by blending sounds to learn how to spell. If they understand these building blocks, experts believe, building fluency and comprehension will be easier.
The difference a coach can make
Fulton placed literacy coaches for grades K-2 in every elementary school during the 2021-22 school year. Now, many serve grades K-5. Some schools, like Cliftondale, have hired more than one. The Georgia Department of Education funded 60 literacy coaches in the state’s lowest-performing schools last year, and credited them with boosting test scores by 15%. Now, state lawmakers want to put a coach in every elementary school that has K-3 classrooms in the state. It’s the centerpiece of a bill recently passed by the House, dubbed the Georgia Early Literacy Act.
Lead sponsor Chris Erwin, R-Homer, said the goal is to establish consistency across the state.
“If a kid moves from one school, even from one district to another, (we want to ensure) they’re on the same page and it’s not different,” said Erwin, who also chairs the House Education Committee. “They don’t have to relearn and the teacher doesn’t either.”
Johnson and Kalista say that’s exactly what’s happening in their district.
“If we get another student from Fulton, then we can really tell,” Johnson said. Fulton students use the same reading materials — the same books, the same dry-erase boards to practice writing and the same strategies for sounding out words.
Kalista and Johnson have been at Cliftondale since Fulton started using literacy coaches. For those who may question whether the initiative is working, they point to the data. In 2025, 74% of the school’s third graders were reading on grade level or above, compared to 59% in 2022. On the 2025 English/Language Arts section of the state-issued Georgia Milestones assessment, 47% of Cliftondale’s third graders scored at grade level or above, compared to 40% in 2022. The school’s population is 92% Black and 56% of its students are economically disadvantaged, according to state data.
Consistency is key
Fulton provides an interesting model for how the state’s plan might go, partly because the district is so vast. Cliftondale is in the county’s southwestern region. About 40 miles north, Vickery Mill Elementary in Roswell is carrying out a similar reading strategy. Vickery Mill has about the same percentage of economically disadvantaged students (57%), but its population is more diverse. Twenty-six percent of the school’s students are Black, 54% are Hispanic and 15% are white. About 41% of students are English language learners.
Vickery Mill’s gains are smaller than Cliftondale’s. In 2025, 60% of their third graders were reading at or above grade level, compared to 56% in 2022. In English/Language Arts, 26% of third graders scored proficient or above in 2025, compared to 23% in 2022.
Still, the scenes at Vickery Mill looked similar to Cliftondale. First graders are reading a passage and highlighting words with the same letter patterns, like “frank” and “prank,” kindergarten students are working in groups, sounding out words and writing letters. Fourth graders are reviewing a passage about a girl named Sadie, who was removed from a school basketball game.
Their teacher, Dylan Townsenger, asks them to figure out why by rereading the text.
“What is that deeper issue that our character is encountering?” he asks the class.
Townsenger gives them a few minutes to find the answer. It turns out, Sadie couldn’t concentrate because she was distracted by an argument she had with her brother before. The students have to search the text for this.
Jinny Benson, Vickery Mill’s literacy coach, said this is what good reading instruction looks like in the upper elementary grades, when students shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”
“I’m not just reading a text for one purpose,” Benson said. “I’m reading it to basically apply all my comprehension skills as well as … to connect to the text and react to the text and make inferences, to be a critical thinker.”
The House passed a budget that includes $31 million to hire literacy coaches. Erwin points to other states that have had success with similar programs, such as Mississippi and Alabama. He doesn’t want Georgia students — or the rest of the state — to be left behind. In his mind, $31 million is money well spent.
“If you can start these young children reading on grade level, think about what we don’t have to do with them in school, and how much that’s going to save us … your return on investment is tremendous,” he said.
Third grade focus
If you’ve wondered why educators seem so focused on third grade reading and English/Language Arts scores, research shows it’s harder for students to catch up if they’re behind at that point.
Educators often describe third grade as the point where students should be shifting from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Put another way, students should be transitioning from mastering the mechanics of reading to using the process to acquire knowledge. However, the coaches interviewed said Fulton schedules 30 minutes of group work in fourth and fifth grades where students who are behind can get extra help.
About the Author
Martha Dalton is a journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writing about K-12 education. She was previously a senior education reporter at WABE, Atlanta's NPR affiliate. Before that, she was a general assignment reporter at CNN Radio. Martha has worked in media for more than 20 years. She taught elementary school in a previous life.
