1. (a) The State Superintendent of Education shall develop, and the State Board of Education shall approve, a dyslexia therapist certification endorsement on or before December 31, 2019.

   1. (1) K-12 and early childhood teachers who have completed an International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council endorsed training course and have received a passing score on the Academic Language Therapy Association’s Certified Academic Language Therapy assessment, or the International Dyslexia Association’s Knowledge and Practice Examination of Effective Reading Instruction, and who hold a valid Professional Educator Certificate shall be eligible for a dyslexia therapist endorsement.
   2. (2) Teacher preparation programs at public colleges and universities in the state shall offer dyslexia therapy teacher preparation courses that are approved by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council or the International Dyslexia Association. Multi-institutional consortia or affiliations to assure access to these courses is acceptable.
   3. (3) Subject to appropriations from the Legislature, the State Superintendent of Education and the Alabama Commission on Higher Education shall develop and approve a dyslexia therapist endorsement incentive, which shall be available to teachers who attain the dyslexia therapist endorsement. The State Superintendent of Education shall construct parameters for earning the dyslexia therapist endorsement incentive.
2. (b) All teacher preparation programs authorized to prepare students for state licensure shall seek accreditation by the council or association for the accreditation of educator preparation on or before December 31, 2020.
3. (c) The State Department of Education shall provide to public and private universities, on an annual basis, the information required for those institutions to comply with council for the accreditation of educator preparation standard four requirements for accreditation. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education shall convene the public university deans of education to facilitate the development of a format for the data needed for accreditation compliance, and work with the State Superintendent of Education to establish effective and timely reporting processes.
4. (d) As a requirement of initial licensure, beginning with the 2020-2021 school year, candidates for initial elementary certification shall receive a passing score, as determined by the State Board of Education, which shall base its determination on the national score average during the preceding academic year, on a foundational reading assessment for entry level teachers of reading. Beginning with the graduating class of 2021, teachers seeking an initial elementary certification who have passed the edTPA and a foundational reading assessment may no longer be required to pass an additional reading assessment.
5. (e) Beginning with the 2020-2021 academic year, public teacher preparation programs leading to the attainment of an initial elementary teaching certification shall require no less than nine credit hours of reading or literacy coursework, or both, based on the science of learning to read, including multisensory strategies in foundation reading skills. The nine credit hours of reading or literacy coursework shall be incorporated within the current credit hours currently approved for the degree program and not require additional credit hours for graduation.

6. (f) The standing task force created by Section 16-6G-3, state public teacher preparation programs, and regional professional development inservice centers shall work together in establishing a state continuum of teacher development for approved science of reading that will reflect levels of literacy teacher development from preservice, reading specialist, to instructional leadership. The State Superintendent of Education and the regional inservice centers shall provide preservice and inservice elementary teachers with all of the following professional learning activities:

   1. (1) Mentoring and shadowing with master teachers selected by Alabama Reading Initiative regional literacy specialists and local reading specialists.
   2. (2) Job embedded, classroom-based coaching in the teaching of reading for the first five years of a teacher’s career.

   3. (3) Curricula and resources in all of the following reading content areas:

      1. a. Oral language development.
      2. b. Phonemic awareness.
      3. c. Phonics.
      4. d. Fluency.
      5. e. Vocabulary.
      6. f. Writing.
      7. g. Comprehension.

(Act 2019-523, §6.)