State policy scan · Current to October 12, 2026

Does your state's literacy law require oral language screening or explicit language instruction?

A 50-state check of statutes and regulations. Each state is coded by what the law requires, not by whether a language keyword appears. This updates Georgan's (2026) analysis of state dyslexia legislation, whose documents were collected in 2022.

Baseline: Georgan (2026). State codes: see each state's citation and sources.

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Oral language screening

Explicit language instruction

Search states or text Screening Instruction

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This summary is for professional learning and is not legal advice.

How states are coded

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The baseline study coded language keywords in 156 dyslexia-related legislative documents collected May–July 2022 (Georgan, 2026). This page codes what each law requires as of October 2026.
Several mandates start later: New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in 2027–28; Hawaii in 2028–29; New Hampshire and Washington in 2027. A "Required" code means enacted, not necessarily in force yet.
"Comprehension" in many screening lists means reading comprehension, not listening comprehension. States that screen vocabulary but not oral language have their own code for that reason.
Handbooks, guidance, and approved-screener lists can go further than the law (Virginia's VALLSS includes language subtests). Guidance-level content is noted but coded no higher than Partial.
Where official legislature sites could not be reached, statute text came from Justia, FindLaw, public.law, or Cornell LII mirrors. Each state's confidence note flags this.
Hawaii's 2026 law lists oral language in screening, but its own definition of the screening mentions only phonological and phonemic awareness.

References

Georgan, W. C. (2026). Analyzing state dyslexia legislation through the lens of oral language: An exploratory study. Annals of Dyslexia, 76(2), 252–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-026-00380-3

Statutes and regulations are cited within each state's entry by code and section, with links to the official code or the mirror used.