Resource Hub

Teaching students to read at the middle school level is a daunting, complex, but doable task. This resource hub lays out how to do so, while connecting and linking to resources that can support you in your instruction and interventions.

HOW TO TEACH STUDENTS TO READ AT MIDDLE SCHOOL:

A Step-by-Step Guide

  1. First, figure out where all students are at through universal screening, which identifies students who are not reading at grade level
  2. From there, sort out exactly what the problem is with diagnostic assessment
  3. Collaboratively plan interventions targeted specifically for the student
  4. Excellent literacy instruction in Tier 1 within an MTSS
    • Train ALL teachers in good, evidence-based literacy instruction strategies, including summarizing, retelling, notetaking, choral reading, echo reading, vocabulary development, morphology, repeated readings, model fluency
    • Abandon multisensory instruction
  5. Tier 2 interventions
    • Support with the precise skills students are lacking
    • Phonological gaps: teach students through explicit instruction, practice, review, using decodables to give students confidence in being able to read connected text
    • Vocabulary development: distributed practice, morphology, contextual teaching of vocabulary, use of high-level vocabulary orally
    • Spelling instruction
    • Writing interventions
    • Oral comprehension: support and scaffold
    • Fluency: scaffold read-alouds (choral reading, echo reading, etc.)
    • Comprehension: outcome of other interventions
      • Teach summarizing, monitoring for understanding, asking questions, retelling
    • Explicit, targeted instruction in the skills that students are struggling with
  6. Tier 3 interventions
    • Further support with the precise skills students are lacking, and finely honed (and rehoned) planning
    • More repetition, more review in small groups and one-on-one, under the supervision of a trained literacy teacher
    • More thorough interventions in longer time periods with a trained literacy teacher
    • Multicomponent interventions
    • Structured literacy instruction in the precise skills and subskills that are lacking, with regular programming reassessment to ensure that interventions are evidence-based and specific to the student’s needs
      • Phonological gaps: teach through explicit instruction, practice, review
      • Vocabulary development: distributed practice, morphology, contextual teaching of vocabulary, use of high-level vocabulary orally
      • Spelling instruction
      • Writing interventions
      • Fluency: scaffold read-alouds (choral reading, echo reading, etc.)Comprehension: outcome of other interventions
        • Teach summarizing, monitoring for understanding, asking questions, retelling
  7. Regular progress monitoring and assessment to monitor success of interventions and instruction. Move beyond reading levels in order to more holistically see the student’s abilities
  8. For diverse learners, additional supports may be required. See English Language Learners, Autism, and Teaching Students with Intellectual Disabilities to Read for more information
  9. Frame social-emotional supports and interventions from an Indigenous perspective. See Incorporating Łoomsk (Respect) for an example of how to do so
  10. Literacy is an equity issue. We need to ensure that our instruction and interventions are evidence-based and systematic so that we intervene with all struggling readers and set them all up for success. Consider the recommendations of the Right to Read report, and how we might reflect on and implement those recommendations in our own regions.