Sarah Mukkuzhi, Contributing Photographer

New Haven Public School officials and local activists gathered at the Friends Center for Children in Fair Haven Heights Tuesday evening to promote literacy.

In New Haven, public school literacy rates have been rising, but are still below the state average. At the Tuesday event, clips of the “Right to Read” documentary, produced in 2023 by LeVar Burton Entertainment and executive produced by Kareem Weaver, the co-founder of a nonprofit focused on literacy, were screened as panelists discussed its implications for New Haven. Weaver himself was the keynote speaker. 

The achievement gap for students of color and impoverished students in Connecticut is one of the highest in the nation, Doris Dumas, the president for the Greater New Haven NAACP chapter said at the event. Reading, she and other panelists insisted, is a civil right. 

“If you can’t read, you can’t access much at all,” Dumas said.  

Steven Hernández, who was the host of the event, opened the evening on the same theme.

“When we fail to teach every child to read we’re not just denying opportunity. We are limiting participation, voice, and belonging,” Hernández said.

Superintendent of New Haven Public Schools Madeline Negrón was another panelist. She told attendees that literacy is her top priority and has been since she started her position in July 2023.

“We’re not where we need to be, and we’re failing kids every single day,” Negrón said. 

After the event, Negrón said in an interview that resource constraints have impeded further progress. The districtwide instructional materials they have begun to provide teachers could not have been made possible without federal funding, she said. 

During his speech, Weaver described the “Missouri Miracle,” when the state improved substantially on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, exam. Missouri has recently adopted a newer research-based approach to teaching reading to replace the methods it traditionally used. Weaver’s nonprofit and the “Right to Read” documentary advocate for the same approach.

The “Right to Read” documentary argues that popularized methods of teaching reading rely too heavily on memorization or illustrations. Balanced literacy, which does not stress phonetics and relies on a looser teaching structure, can leave students unable to tackle harder texts, according to reporting in The New York Times. 

“The way in which we teach reading has to be very intentional, resourced, systematic and supported,” Hernández said. “And that’s so much of what we don’t have in so many of our districts that are struggling. So the right to read really is a question about if we’re going to focus on investment.” 

The NAEP exam is often called “the nation’s report card.” 

Correction, Oct. 23: A previous version of this article misstated the name of the event’s location. It is the Friends Center for Children, not the Friend’s Center for Children.