Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a law on July 21, 2026, requiring all K-5 teachers who teach reading or language arts to complete evidence-based literacy training grounded in the science of reading by the start of the 2031-32 school year. The Michigan Department of Education must select at least two training vendors each year to provide the required professional learning.
The law builds on legislation passed in 2024, known as Public Acts 146 and 147, which already required districts to use evidence-based reading instruction aligned with the science of reading and to screen students for characteristics of dyslexia beginning with the 2027-28 school year. Those statutes specify instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.
The new mandate
Although the law does not name a specific training vendor, state leaders including Whitmer, State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko, and House Speaker Matt Hall have publicly identified LETRS, offered by Lexia, in announcements. The state education budget includes $75 million specifically for LETRS training. As of July 1, 2026, 7,460 Michigan educators had completed LETRS training and 5,684 were enrolled, according to the Michigan Department of Education. LETRS typically takes two years to complete; some schools offer stipends or classroom coverage with substitutes during training. Teachers holding an interim teaching certificate are exempt.
The requirement is conditional: teachers must receive the training only if the Legislature provides sufficient funding, creating a mandate tied to future appropriations.
Governor Whitmer also signed House Bill 5646, which requires the state superintendent to approve only teacher preparation programs that meet literacy requirements grounded in the science of reading and to grant teacher certificates only when those requirements are met. In late December 2025, the Michigan Department of Education published state-approved lists of literacy materials as required by the 2024 laws: 14 approved K-5 literacy curriculum programs and two approved dyslexia screening programs. Districts must select from these lists or notify parents of an alternative choice, and they are prohibited from using curricula that rely on prompting students to guess at words or skip unknown words.
Comparative context
Michigan is among roughly 40 states that have passed laws or new policies pushing for an evidence-based, science-of-reading approach to teaching children to read, according to an Education Week analysis. The specific mandates, timelines, and vendor selection processes vary by state. Other states have encouraged or mandated LETRS training before Michigan's mandate, though no student-outcome results from those states' implementations were documented in the provided sources.
Research evidence
Michigan State University Distinguished Professor of Language and Literacy Patricia Edwards expressed skepticism about the mandate, noting that factors influencing child literacy extend beyond schools and that a single training requirement alone cannot address the full range of influences on reading outcomes. She emphasized that teachers' capacity to affect literacy is limited to the hours students spend in school. That critique is expert opinion rather than a peer-reviewed study.
Michigan's literacy teacher preparation standards, approved by the State Board of Education in 2018, were informed by the Literacy Essentials, which are based on research into reading science. New teacher certification tests debuted in 2022 featuring stand-alone literacy subtests aligned to these standards. The Michigan Department of Education describes these as providing a strong quality assurance of new teachers' preparation to deliver effective literacy instruction, though no independent evaluation of student-outcome impact from these standards was identified in the provided sources.