Not Just Behind—Stuck: Helping Students Cross the Bridge to Skilled Reading

I’m in ninth grade, but reading still slows me down. I get stuck on words like “environmental” or “involved.” I sound them out but don’t know what they mean fast enough to keep going. By the time I finish the paragraph, I’ve forgotten how it even started. People think I don’t care.

I do.

Seventy percent of eighth grade students across the country read below proficiency, and a third struggle with foundational reading skills (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024).

That means the average student—not just the outliers—isn’t equipped to handle the texts in front of them.

National Lexile data shows most middle school students scoring below proficiency are reading at a second to fifth grade level, far below the complexity of texts they encounter in middle school (MetaMetrics, 2022).

The question isn’t just: “Why can’t they comprehend?”

The real question is: “Did they ever fully develop the skills needed to read complex words fluently and confidently?”

In my work during the past year with the New Schools for New Orleans Literacy Leader Cohort—a group of secondary educators working across grades 6 through 12—I’ve been digging deeply into that very question.

And what I’ve found is something we all need to name:

Many students aren’t just behind—they’re stuck in a critical stage of reading development.

They got the early phonics.

However, they never received sustained, intentional instruction in advanced decoding, morphology, and text-level fluency.

So now, in sixth, eighth, and even 10th grade, they’re sitting in front of grade-level text—but their cognitive load is maxed out. They’re spending as much effort trying to figure out the words as they try to understand them—and it’s too much to carry at once.

What Happens Between ‘Learning to Read’ and ‘Reading to Learn’

Many students don’t fall behind because they can’t decode—they fall behind because their instruction stops at the basics. They learned the alphabetic principle. They mastered short vowels, common consonant blends, and maybe even some simple digraphs. But that’s where the teaching ended. Dr. Linnea Ehri (2005) called this moment the Consolidated Alphabetic Phase—when students begin recognizing larger chunks like morphemes, syllables, and roots with speed and accuracy. But getting there isn’t automatic. It takes repeated exposure, targeted word analysis, and intentional practice.

This is where too many students stall—not because they’re incapable, but because the instructional program moves on without them. Research from Castles, Rastle, and Nation (2018) and Willms (2022) underscores this phase as a critical transition: The point where students must move from basic decoding to fluent, flexible, meaning-driven reading. But in many classrooms—especially between grades 3 and 8—that kind of instruction is missing. In my New Orleans work, we’re seeing it firsthand: Students who were taught the first half of reading but not the rest. They never got the complex graphemes. They were never shown how to break down multisyllabic words. They’ve never had the repeated modeling and practice to make fluency and comprehension stick.

And this isn’t just anecdotal—it’s systemic. According to a 2023 RAND study, 45% of middle school teachers hold at least one misconception about how students learn to read, and fewer than 1 in 5 receive training in reading fluency, comprehension, or helping students access grade-level texts (Shapiro et al., 2023). That’s not a teacher gap—it’s a system gap. We’re asking students to read to learn before we’ve fully taught them how to read.

A Multicomponent Solution

We can’t close a multilayered literacy gap with a single-strategy solution. The most effective interventions combine five strands—Advanced decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing—because they address both the mechanics and meaning of reading. Scammacca et al. (2007), Vaughn et al. (2019), and Kim et al. (2017) all confirm progress with adolescent readers requires addressing multiple components in tandem, not in isolation. And writing—often treated as separate—shouldn’t be left out. Decades of research by Steve Graham (2011, 2023) shows that writing improves reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency by making thinking visible and strengthening language processing. These five strands don’t compete—they compound.

🎧 On the Podcast

During the EDVIEW360 podcast, I’ll share what we’ve learned about design and leadership, and how we’re working to create meaningful change for secondary readers in grades 6–12.

I’ll dig into:

• What it takes to interrupt unfinished reading development in the secondary grades
• How to build advanced decoding into comprehension-rich instruction
• The leadership moves that drive sustainable systems change

A multicomponent approach only works when it’s paired with a multistrategy intervention—intentional, layered, and embedded throughout the school day.

I hope you’ll join me.

Learn More

References

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100618772271

Ehri, L. C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167–188. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr0902_4

Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710–744. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566

Graham, S., Liu, X., Bartlett, B., Harris, K. R., Lee, S. Y., & Kavanaugh, C. M. (2023). Improving writing and reading performance through writing instruction: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 93(1), 5–56. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543221143874

Harris, K. R., Graham, S., Mason, L. H., & Friedlander, B. (2008). POWERFUL writing strategies for all students. Paul H. Brookes Publishing.

Kim, J. S., Boyle, A. E., Skibbe, L., & Foster, L. (2017). Reading interventions for struggling readers in the upper elementary grades: A synthesis of research. Review of Educational Research, 87(2), 386–424. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316687031

MetaMetrics. (2022). Lexile Framework for Reading: Grade-level benchmarks. Retrieved from https://metametricsinc.com

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). The Nation’s Report Card: 2024 reading assessment results. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov

Scammacca, N. K., Roberts, G., Vaughn, S., & Stuebing, K. K. (2007). Interventions for adolescent struggling readers: A meta-analysis with implications for practice. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.

Vaughn, S., Wexler, J., Roberts, G., Barth, A., Cirino, P., Fletcher, J. M., & Denton, C. A. (2019). High-quality reading instruction in middle and high school: Considerations in literacy intervention. The Reading Teacher, 73(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1787