STATE FUNDING GUIDE

Delaware

Delaware’s Early Literacy Plan pairs SB 4’s curriculum and PD mandates with roughly $8 million in new grant funding announced in March 2026: $6.1M in competitive Bridge to Practice grants to 25 districts and charters plus a $1.9M three-year state implementation grant. Bridge to Practice dollars are usable for high-quality instructional materials, curriculum-based professional learning, coaching, and staffing models. Districts must adopt a K-3 reading curriculum from DDOE’s published evidence-based list by 2027-28; outside these grants, intervention purchases typically draw on federal Title I/IDEA.

2025-2028 Delaware Early Literacy Plan (building on SB 4, 2022)

How schools fund reading intervention in Delaware

The state-level programs below are the streams Delaware districts most often use for evidence-based reading intervention purchases, alongside the federal streams available everywhere.

Bridge to Practice grants

$6.1M in competitive DDOE grants (first cohort awarded to 25 districts/charters in March 2026) for adopting and skillfully using science-of-reading-aligned instructional materials, PD, and coaching; all districts and charters may apply, with priority for TSI/CSI schools.

Accelerate State Implementation Fund grant

$1.9M three-year grant to DDOE supporting statewide implementation of the Early Literacy Plan (leadership academies, professional learning); state-level capacity funding rather than direct district purchasing.

Approved-list note: Under SB 4, DDOE publishes an annually updated list of evidence-based K-3 reading curricula and districts must adopt core reading curriculum from it by 2027-28; interventions are not the list’s subject but should align with the same science-of-reading criteria.

Official state resource →