SANTA FE, N.M. — The New Mexico Public Education Department has begun requiring grades 6-12 English language arts, English language development and special education teachers, along with interventionists and literacy coaches, to complete AIM Pathways to Proficient Reading: Secondary professional development, starting with sixth-grade educators in the 2025-26 school year. State leaders say the science of reading professional development is meant to help secondary educators spot and address foundational skill gaps that can stall learning across subjects, Dec. 29, 2025.
The 55-hour online course connects reading research — including models such as the Simple View of Reading and Scarborough’s Reading Rope — to practical routines for adolescent learners. The phased rollout and training details are listed in AIM’s New Mexico partnership overview.
Science of reading training expands to secondary classrooms
The mandate is scheduled to expand by grade band each year: sixth grade educators begin training in 2025-26; seventh and eighth grade educators in 2026-27; ninth and 10th grade educators in 2027-28; and 11th and 12th grade educators in 2028-29.
The expansion comes as national indicators show continued trouble for adolescents’ reading. The National Assessment Governing Board’s overview of NAEP reading trends reported that average reading scores declined again in 2024 for both 4th and 8th graders compared with 2022, and that 12th-grade reading fell to its lowest level on record.
New Mexico officials point to improving state results as evidence that the science of reading approach can move achievement — and as a reason to extend training beyond the early grades. RISE NM reported that reading proficiency for grades 3-8 climbed 10 percentage points since 2022, reaching 44% in 2025. The state said gains were strongest among Native American students (up 13 points), Hispanic students (up 10) and English learners (up 8). Third graders rose 8 points in a single year, while sixth and seventh graders posted gains of 6 and 5 points.
“These results confirm that the state’s investments in early literacy and the science of reading are working,” Public Education Secretary Mariana D. Padilla said. “We’re seeing the payoff in classrooms across the state.”
District leaders and teachers say adolescent literacy remains a harder lift than early-grade reading blocks because many secondary educators were not trained to teach foundational skills such as decoding and spelling. In its recent reporting on the issue, Education Week described New Mexico’s statewide rollout and highlighted Windey McKelvie, an 11th- and 12th-grade English teacher at Cloudcroft High School, who completed the AIM Pathways course as an early participant.
Science of reading momentum has been building for years
New Mexico’s move into teen literacy follows a broader national shift toward evidence-based reading instruction. An Education Week analysis published in 2022 found that 40 states and the District of Columbia had passed laws or adopted policies tied to evidence-based reading instruction since 2013. In New Mexico, the early implementation of Structured Literacy New Mexico — including statewide LETRS training for elementary educators — was profiled in the American Federation of Teachers’ Spring 2023 report from Vado Elementary School.
Supporters of the AIM requirement say the goal is to make science of reading routines part of secondary instruction — not as a separate program, but as another tool for teachers and literacy teams trying to keep students on track for graduation, careers and college-level reading.
