No Statute of Limitations on Learning to Read Well: What do Upper-Level Students Need When They Are Struggling to Read?

Our guest authors are Sue Pimentel, co-founder of StandardsWork, and David Liben, and Meredith Liben founders and directors of Reading Done Right.

In American middle schools, it’s not enough to merely know how to read. Students are expected to understand, analyze, and make meaning from grade-level complex texts, which is only possible if they have the skills and knowledge to read well—fluently and with ease.

Yet nearly one in three U.S. eighth-graders reads below a basic level, including almost half of Black and Hispanic students. Most often, these students blame themselves for weak literacy skills and assume they just aren’t as bright or talented as their classmates. Extra help that uses materials from elementary school does little to dispel the notion. And it denies students access to the sophisticated grade-level vocabulary and content that can help them catch up, a vicious cycle where students are forever left behind.

American educators need a better playbook to coach upper-level students up to grade level—one that seamlessly integrates within a mainstream classroom while exposing all students to appropriately rigorous content and ideas. It’s never too late to learn how to read well, and it need not come at the expense of learning the knowledge and vocabulary they are expected to know by graduation. 

Explicit strategies exist to improve the reading of upper-level students who are reading below grade level. We’re not talking about remedial or pull-out programs, or placing students in lower-level courses or with lower-level texts. We’re talking about strategies that can accelerate their learning and support them in benefitting from grade-level instruction alongside their peers, including tactics that use grade-level texts to teach foundational skills in individual or small-group extra-help sessions that are tightly integrated and overlap with tier-one content as the source of the extra student practice. 

First, all effective literacy instruction should be embedded in a content-rich academic program that stimulates and sparks learning for all students. They maximize engagement, honor the intellect and maturity of older adolescent students, and allow for student choice and individualization. Then, within such a program, there are two evidence-based strategies that can accelerate development and build confidence so students not only read, but read well:

• Strengthen decoding skills through grade-level instruction and texts
• Promote fluency through interactive activities, including read-alouds and other oral extension activities

Use grade-level content to teach and practice decoding to achieve automatic word recognition

When a student first learns how to decode words in early elementary school, instruction in foundational skills is central and explicit and, over time, develops their ability to recognize words automatically, without effort. Upper-level students who haven’t yet achieved automatic word recognition work harder than the typical student and progress more slowly through texts. Their brains are focused on decoding the words instead of interpreting their meaning. Comprehension is nearly impossible. They need additional explicit instruction to develop automatic word recognition, especially through decoding the multisyllabic words they’ll frequently encounter in grade-level texts. It’s where they most often stumble. Students need lots of practice breaking apart, blending, and accurately sounding out those complex words. But they also need that instruction incorporated into their ongoing grade-level learning where they remain in the classroom with their same-age peers, to gain and protect a sense of self as reader and learner. 

Students can thrive when foundational skills instruction is incorporated into ongoing grade-level learning. While the instructional content needed for automatic word recognition is generally the same for upper-level and younger students, the instructional delivery methods, texts, and content should be adjusted to reflect students’ maturity and the demands of secondary school. Evidence from the What Works Clearinghouse and a solid base of research point the way: 

• Teach simple and more advanced letter-sound combinations, building on what students already know and using words encountered in the core classroom materials. This work can be embedded seamlessly into any fluency or close reading activities.
• Engage in regular morphology study, including but not limited to having students: 
  • Read aloud a list of high-frequency prefixes and suffixes in unison, or by taking turns; optimally, these words should be selected from the core classroom readings 
  • Underline prefixes and suffixes in a word list and then read them aloud in unison, or by taking turns
  • Circle root words and then read them aloud, slowly emphasizing each syllable in unison or by taking turns; then, blend the syllables and read normally in unison, or by taking turns
  • Write new words by adding a prefix and/or a suffix to base words
• Embed spelling and vocabulary instruction in lessons to solidify students’ understanding of letter-sound combinations that form words, including but not limited to having students:
  • Spell targeted prefixes and suffixes or sounds in dictated words, which should emerge from classroom readings
  • Spell multisyllabic words containing targeted spelling patterns and morphemes to review and reinforce learning, using words from content instruction as often as possible
• Provide students with a research-based routine for decoding multisyllabic words, which should be from classroom materials whenever possible. This could include, but is not limited to, having students who need it:
  • Practice vowel combinations in multisyllabic words they encounter in a text or vocabulary list
  • Read aloud a list of words drawn from a lesson to a partner, noting any multisyllabic words they have difficulty reading; then, read the list to the partner a second time 
  • Read aloud a list of up to 20 multisyllabic words drawn from the lesson in unison, or by taking turns (alternatively, the teacher can read first and then ask students to read next)
  • Using the same words as above, ask students to time themselves to see how they improve with repetition, making sure instructions call for students to alternate reading top to bottom and bottom to top to avoid memorization
  • Read aloud sentences containing multisyllabic words in unison or by taking turns (alternatively, the teacher reads first, and then students read next)

Build fluency with grade-level texts

Research shows dysfluency causes as much as 40 percent of the variance in students who pass tests versus those who fail in every testing grade through grade 12. Fluent readers can read sophisticated texts accurately and with expression relevant to their purpose. The expression and pace that work for informational texts are different from narratives. The tone and meaning of, for example, a historical document like the United States Constitution is different from Esperanza Rising or A Raisin in the Sun—all of which are commonly assigned in secondary school. 

Upper-level students benefit from purposeful fluency-building activities using grade-level texts connected to the topics students are learning that build and depend on automatic word recognition. Teachers should build in flexible opportunities to repeat such activities. Students benefit from 15 to 20 minutes of reading practice daily to avoid dysfluency. The first read should be read for initial comprehension before they are used for fluency. Students also learn and master words and grow their fluency through repeated exposures to vocabulary and texts over time. Repetition also enhances another benefit of fluency work, by making core texts available to all students, irrespective of their current ability to access them independently. Research supports these strategies:

• Engage in repeated readings of familiar grade-level text under timed conditions. This can improve students’ fluency and, in the long run, their comprehension. Texts should not require great prosody (e.g., use informational texts on what a coastline is or a comparison between two planets). Make this a game-based learning exercise, such as class reading competitions and group challenges with points, badges, and prizes. 
• Repeat  oral readings of the same text every day, but in a different way and for different purposes over several days. This reinforces proper pronunciation and phrasing, increases students’ automaticity with words and phrases, and allows them to demonstrate their growing comprehension of the text. In addition, ask students to read the passage containing the words they are learning with a different emphasis (e.g., read for expression, read in voices).
• Utilize repeated oral reading fluency protocols that successively provide more support for students, such as:
  • Whole-class choral reading - all students read the same text aloud with the teacher. Texts are drawn directly from the curriculum. This allows students to hear a model of prosodic reading from the teacher and receive immediate assistance pronouncing unfamiliar words and phrases. It also provides safe cover for readers who struggle, as individual students are not singled out. 
  • Echo reading - the teacher reads a section of the text aloud, stops, and then students take turns reading the same section aloud. Echo reading is especially beneficial for insecure readers because it chunks passages for fluency practice. 
  • Buddy reading - students take turns reading the text to each other and follow an established protocol for taking turns, proceeding when a student doesn’t know a word, and supporting one another with positive feedback. It works best when less fluent readers are paired with more fluent classmates.
• Establish  Reader’s Theatre, where students and the teacher “perform” a script as they read it aloud. This is a common instructional move in elementary grades, though less common in secondary. Readers’ Theatre, by its nature, simultaneously develops comprehension, offers access for all, and is respectful and collaborative. Students do not need to memorize the script, though they should reread it to build familiarity with the language and attain proper expression and complete fluency. 

No research can tell us how much repetition any one student needs, so teachers must determine what’s appropriate. High-quality curricula can support them in doing this. The Knowledge Matters Campaign has recently added 6-8 exemplars to its Curriculum Directory, which includes a discussion of how these knowledge-rich programs support upper-level students when they are learning to read.  

Serve as coach and cheerleader

To these well-established recommendations, we add one more suggestion: nurture students’ efficacy and self-worth since spending years as dysfluent readers can be soul-crushing. Studies show that as early as 5th grade, struggling readers are “more likely to consider themselves angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular.”

Teachers can help unwind these negative assumptions by articulating and reinforcing two big ideas:

First, students’ cognitive capacities are not the reason they struggle to read; prior ineffective instructional approaches during their early years of schooling are to blame. Teaching students about the science of reading can help them understand why this is the case. 

Second, ineffective instruction is why upper-level texts feel hard. Students who were denied the opportunity to master reading skills at a young age currently have smaller banks of vocabulary and knowledge to call on to understand texts. The work they are being asked to do can get them where they can and should be.

The activities and approaches outlined above are only a sample of the successful approaches research has shown to be effective with upper-level students who are struggling to read. To gain a sense of the full range of these activities, why they are effective, and which ones would fit best into your instructional context, we recommend consulting the many studies linked.

Learning to read well is not easy, and too many students have been poorly supported in their efforts for too long. But with candor, encouragement, and evidence-based instruction, educators can accelerate all students to realize their potential.