I've heard a variation of the following debate in lots of spaces for the past few years: If students can't access the grade level text, should we lower the lexile and/or read out loud/use audiobooks, or should we stick with the research that says all students need to read grade level texts but scaffold their understanding.

The underlying assumption is that our students can't read. I've talked about my efforts to teach phonics in my middle school classroom on previous posts. And I've done a lot of reading about the best way to teach students to read without using the canned programs aimed at much younger students. 

Frankly, most teachers I interact with (both in person and in online spaces) feel like the ship has sailed, and their job is to do whatever they can to teach grade level standards. Some of that is that secondary teachers aren't trained to teach the mechanics of reading. I never took a linguistics class, and I never learned the explicit rules of phonics after getting them when I learned how to read as a child. And a good bit of that is that there are lots of half-hearted measures given to secondary teachers that are aimed at elementary students, so are badly received and under-supported in the implementation.

I do think there are good reasons why most middle and high school teachers don't teach reading. However, I don't think those are reasons why they shouldn't.

I would argue that our job as secondary English teachers has changed. It's no longer just teaching students to love reading and giving them access to texts that help them expand their skills, their worldview, and their ability to empathise with others. Our job is now to teach our students HOW to read.

One thing I've learned as I've started down this path is that there is a lot about English I didn't know. Kids would ask why a word was spelled a certain way, or why C has so many different sounds, or where a word came from, and I didn't know. I understood grammar to a pretty high level (thanks to some amazing college professors), and I was an excellent writer. But I didn't know nearly enough about the history of the English language, and how that history influences how we sound and how words are spelled.

In designing a program to teach my students how to read, I also needed to learn the history of the language, and the code of how the language is put together. As it turns out, I've been telling students that English "doesn't make sense" when it actually DOES. The reason doesn't always seem satisfying (I joke that it almost entirely comes down to two reasons: "medieval monks" or "English speakers are lazy"), but there are reasons for why we do what we do in English.

So that leads to two big questions: how do teachers bridge the knowledge gap in understanding the English language, and what do we do in the classroom to help our students also bridge that gap?

Here's what I've done so far:

• Read a lot of books. The most helpful ones were: Uncovering the Logic of English, Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers, Essentials of Understand

The weekly etymology paragraphs are probably the best thing I've done this year. I've written about them before, but as a quick overview:

• Students write on a topic (usually given to them, and about whatever text we're studying) 
• They include one word of their choice from each of the roots they've learned (originally ten a week, now I pared down to six)
• They include one to three spelling words from the week's spelling rule
• They work together to write it on their boards
• I grade it during class and give them feedback on whatever skill we're focusing on, and how well they were able to use the words

I have had a few kids who have expressed a bit of frustration when they had groups that didn't want to work as hard as they did. Their group was fine with a 70%, but they wanted 100%, and the tension was hard to deal with for them. Often, they'd just do most of the work but tell me is was "equal effort" and doctor the total on the speaker board so it looked more equitable. 

One student asked if I could have a "change your seat" reward in PBIS. I thought about it, and came up with these criteria:

• You must currently have an A or B in the class
• You have to buy it before you come into class (so before you know your seat)
• If three people buy it together, they can form their own group

Today, we tried it for the first time. There was one group in each class that took the "all three buy it together" option, and several who opted to choose their own seat. 

The scores in those groups were on par with the averages from all the other groups. However, I noticed that some of the students who have been least engaged actually stepped up more when they didn't have someone take over the group process. I would say today's activity was the most peaceful, successful Friday we've had in a long time. 

I also made one additional change. I pull small groups every other day, but we don't have time on Friday to do it. So I chose three students in each class who typically do very well on the paragraphs, and could use a little extra enrichment. These are students who put the effort in to make it good, not just to make their grade good. 

I had them complete the activity separately, but gave them an additional requirement: use an appositive somewhere in their paragraph. We talked through what an appositive does, and how to use them. One group set themselves the goal to use five appositives, even though I asked for only one. 

Those groups rose well beyond my expectations, and their paragraphs were stellar. They also were far less frustrated today, as their group was equally motivated. I plan to work with them on the emotional regulation side as well, as I think there's a lot of benefit to working with people who need explanations broken down a little more than they are wont to give. 

I'm glad I didn't make any of these changes before this point in the semester. It has shown me the typical behaviour of each student, and helped me differentiate my instruction and feedback. 

This week, we are about half-way through Anne Frank, and students are starting to trace the conflicts and the rising tension in the plot. 

Through all of it, I feel like I'm coming back to the same main skills over and over:

• writing complete sentences
• using words correctly in meaning and syntax
• understanding how words break apart into roots and how prefixes alter meaning and suffixes inform what part of speech
• summarising complex information
• making inferences based on evidence
• choosing good evidence
• building background knowledge 

That last bullet point isn't one I've focused on much in the past few years. I love following student curiosity, and answering random questions they come up with. However, I haven't always given it the class time because I've  felt the pressure of time and curriculum pushing me on.

One of the best things about small group is the conversation piece. They are willing to ask WAY more questions in that setting than in the whole class, and we've been able to follow their curiosity much more often. It's also probably why they all say small group is their favourite part of my class. 

One question I get a lot from all different kinds of students is this one: "Why do we need to know about Anne Frank/the Holocaust?"

In the past, I've given the stock answer: because we don't want it to happen again. 

But now, I'm trying to develop more of an answer for them. Things I'd now include:

• Knowing more about the world makes us want to know more, and makes us more curious. Curiosity is one of the most important traits humans can develop
• Knowing about it helps us connect with other people more, and helps us develop empathy for the experiences of others, especially those who are unlike us
• Antisemitism still exists, and recognising it is an important step in cutting it off. You can't recognise it if you haven't even heard the word before
• Some experiences, like reading Anne Frank in middle school, are expected. It's one of the most popular texts across the nation for middle schoolers, and has been for decades
• She's a lot like us, despite the cultural, linguistic, and chronological differences and it shows that some aspects of human culture are just universal

I'm working hard to make sure students feel like they can ask any question and I'll take it seriously.

With one exception: the student who has asked me how Anne Frank could read and write if she was blind and deaf.

They asked that question three separate times on three separate weeks.

​That one left me a bit incredulous. 

This week, we are looking at summarising. 

I love using Common Lit articles, and that is mostly what my students do when I'm working in small groups. Last week, they read an article that gave background to the Holocaust. 

I gave them a section out of that article and asked them to identify the main idea. Then I had them cross out any sentences that did not directly talk about the main idea.

I encountered this strategy in Developing Reading Comprehension, and I was impressed by what they were able to produce. They point out in the book that it's MUCH easier to delete things than to identify things that are "important."
​
​Here's the section we used:

They were able to cross out the majority of the paragraph after identifying the three main components in this section. Then we talked about what an objective summary is, and what a summary should do (take what's there, put it in your own words, and shorten it).

I sent them to their boards to create a group summary.

Then, I chose two boards to feature for consolidation. I chose one board that had some opinion words, and one board that included too many words or details. We were able to rewrite both examples as a class to improve them.

I forgot to take pictures, so there are no pictures this week. 

Next week, we're repeating this with two sections of an article so I will either update this post, or add it to next week.

This post, like the assignment I feature, is going to be a short one.

I've written before about the Flash Research Project, which is essentially an EduProtocol that (I'm pretty sure?) I came up with. The idea is that you have students generate a question or you give them a specific topic. Then they have 20 minutes to find three credible websites, one picture/illustration, and write a 3-5 sentence summary in their own words. You can repeat this with new topics, focusing on building their ability to choose credible websites and to write solid summaries that capture all the main points of their topic.

This week, we started learning about the background to the Holocaust so we can read Diary of Anne Frank. We are making a timeline of events both in the world and in the book, so students started by researching a German law that impacted the lives of Jewish people. 

Here's the template (link will give you your own copy):

Notice that I use a GREY background. That is intentional, because it's much easier to catch kids copying/pasting information (the copy/paste will have a white background).

In the past, I've used it to discuss what sources are best for finding credible information, how to filter through google search results, how to properly cite images you pull from google images, and all the skills around summarising. It also lets you discuss the formation of good questions (though that wasn't part of this activity).

But here's the Thinking Classroom twist. All the students at one group had the same law to research. After they finished, they went to their boards and co-constructed their own summary together. It let them discuss misconceptions, as well as compare sources and clear up any lingering questions. 

For the first time we did it, it went really well. Here are two that were particularly good. I love adding the collaborative element, and the summaries were stronger as a group than the ones they wrote individually.

The idea of this assignment is to repeat it until they've mastered the skills of research. 

We'll do another one this week, and layer in them choosing their own topic as a group, and maybe reducing the writing requirement to making bullet point notes on their own, then collaborating on the summary.

I've been thinking this week about routines that make my life easier.

I've written about some of them before. On Monday and Wednesday, I introduce a new etymology root. I try to scan the reading for the week and choose words that either are used in the passage, or relevant to the characters. On Tuesday, I give them a new spelling rule from Uncovering the Logic of English. On Thursday, I do a lesson in voice/diction (from Discovering Voice), followed by 8 pArts and a short narrative based on a picture. On Friday, they write their etymology paragraph using all their etymology words and words drawn from the spelling rule. 

With small group taking up 30 minutes, four times a week, that leaves about 45 minutes a day to plan for. That's enough time in one week for reading/watching/listening to two short stories and doing a writing assignment. As we move into the Anne Frank unit (the district adopted the play version rather than Diary), that will be a scene or two a day. 

It's a major help to planning to have well-established routines. It means each week, I need two new roots, a new spelling rule, a mini-lesson on writing, a picture for 8 pArts, a topic/picture prompt for a narrative, and one to two texts. That's a lot, but it's less than the overwhelming amount when you think about starting from nothing. It's also a lot easier to tie it all together and make it feel like a coherent unit that way.

The Friday etymology activity becomes a true assessment of how much they've learned during the week, as well as a measure of their progress in writing. It gives me an opportunity to assess what syntax/grammar skills need to be addressed (apostrophes are next up in the queue) and if any of the content needs to be reviewed.

Today I also threw in an ungraded five question assessment on Cask of Amontillado, focusing on choosing the best evidence to support a claim. I actually asked ChatGPT to write some of the questions, and with some minor alterations, I was happy with the results. Here are the questions, if you're interested. I had them write their answers and score them at their tables. The average score was in the 70-80% range, with a low of 40% and a lot of 100% scores. 

I'm still trying to find a balance with feeling like I need to do EVERYTHING and picking the things I can do well and focusing on those. It's hard, as I'm always letting pieces drop. But this is the best I've ever done with planning, and the routines have a big part to play in that.

This week, our focus was on reading a difficult text: Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death. The lexile is at the upper end of the 8th grade level, but there are tons of words students wouldn't be familiar with.

However, it was the perfect opportunity to teach them to use their etymology knowledge to determine the meaning of new words. We had already done a "first read" by listening to a podcast adaptation of the story.  It changes some of the details of the story to fill out the character of the Duke a bit. I also taught some of the vocabulary that appeared in the story in the clarifications column. It was their first introduction to summarising and clarifying, so we mostly did it as a whole class.

​Then, we approached the actual text.

They used their boards to develop guesses for words they don't know, and then kept those up as we read the passage together. 

​Here's the (slightly adapted) text I used. We used a graphic organiser aimed at teaching them the first two strategies in the Reciprocal Teaching protocol - Summarising and Clarifying. Here's what that looked like:

I would read one or two paragraphs out loud, then send them to their boards to summarise and add to their guesses about the meaning of words. 

After we finished a page, they would return to the graphic organiser and summarise the whole page and add a few words they wanted to remember in the Clarifications column. 

​In this week's etymology paragraph, I noticed a marked increase in their understanding of the story, and a few even used the words we talked about like "morbid" and "grotesque" even though they weren't required.  My co-teacher in the inclusion section of the course remarked that their writing was improving, and their use of the vocabulary is much improved from the start of the year.

Here are some of the paragraphs, and some pictures of students completing their summary/clarification work at the boards.

I've written about Etymology Paragraphs before on here. They're new for me this year, so it's something I've been fine-tuning over the course of the semester.

I've always taught etymology, usually using English From the Roots Up, which I stole from my mom. She had it as a homeschooling resource for me when I was in elementary school, but it's a really sensible program. The only thing I didn't like was that the words weren't always high-use or high-impact. Knowing tele- and skopeo- are great, but I wanted a better way of helping students break down important words they're likely to see. 

With the addition of the vertical surfaces, I made a change in the sequencing of instruction, and changed up the roots I chose to focus on. 

We start at the common whiteboard, and I show them the root with its definition. I ask them for words they know that come from the root and take two quickly. Then I send them to their boards to brainstorm all the words they can. I used to do this whole-class, with volunteers suggesting words and me writing them on the board as we went. They would do the "write what I say" version of notes, then study for a traditional test. 

Now, I give them a few minutes, and then call them back to the common whiteboard (in my room, it's called the "Jack Whiteboard" because that's the card assigned to it). I usually call out the boards with the best lists, as well as the boards that found a word I've chosen to focus on. I usually pick a range of words (3-6) that are common enough that I can use them in class, but also are words that I think they may encounter but not fully understand. 

At the beginning of the year, we talked a lot about how words are put together, and then just went over definitions and what each root meant, focusing particularly on the high-impact prefixes. Then I started talking about what the suffixes told us (usually part of speech) to coincide with doing the first 8 pArts assignment. After they were pretty confident with the four parts of speech we started with (noun, adj, verb, adv), I would include this information in the instruction. 

Importantly, I do this instruction fairly briskly while we're standing at the boards. It's important that they are paying attention instead of just writing notes. I also want them to say the definitions of each root part as I list it. So it's something like this:

Okay, so for concentrate, you know the prefix, right? Con means....(pause)...(if no one responds)...like "community"? Then centr means...?

Very much a dialogue, but for the kids who are willing to play along and say the definitions, they've already started memorising them without putting too much effort into it. 

When we've gone over all the words, they go back to their notes and try to write it all from memory. They look up at the board when they can't remember.

Here's what the notes include:

With this root, we talk about how Webster single-handedly changed American spelling, and why there are two spellings for some of those words. 

I choose what roots to do each week by looking at the texts we're studying soon and making sure I include at least a few words that are relevant. We're doing Daedalus and Icarus right now, so "egocentric" was relevant, and eccentric and egocentric appear in Poe texts we're tackling next week. 

This week, I also started introducing a spelling rule on the day between Etymology days (Monday and Wednesday). I'm using Uncovering the Logic of English and introducing her spelling rules each week. This week was the first one: C always says /s/ when followed by e, i, or y, and otherwise says /k/.

I chose words this week that illustrate that rule as well (concentrate and eccentric demonstrate both sounds of C in one word). 

To introduce the spelling rule, I asked students to brainstorm on their boards a list of words that have C somewhere in them. I asked that they included words with C in the middle, in the beginning, and in the end. After a few minutes, I asked them to make some generalisations about the sound C makes in those words. 

A few students actually articulated the rule correctly BEFORE I introduced it. But the real lightbulb moment was when I showed them why "panic" becomes "panicking" - it HAS to, to maintain the rule. It would be the /s/ sound without the k. As the book promises, when you know the rules, English doesn't seem as illogical and capricious. 

I asked students this week to include two words we didn't explicitly go over during Spelling Rule #1 in their end-of-week Etymology paragraphs. This week, it was panicked and accidental. I said those out loud rather than including them in the instructions, obviously.

The weekly assignment asks them to write about whatever text we're studying that week, so it also adds a layer of check for understanding to make sure they got it. I could definitely tell the groups that understood the story and which struggled to remember the details or hadn't done a good job paying attention and taking notes in class. 

Here's what it looked like: 

Each week I drop out two roots and replace them with the new one. I've tried to keep the ones they most struggle with, to force them to revisit them. So comportment/insupportable keep featuring in the paragraphs because they really struggled to use those correctly. I'm about ready to move those on, because this week, they used them really, really well. I also drop out "easier" options after the first week. So "provoke" was new this week, but almost every single group used it correctly in every class. So I'll take that one out, as they've demonstrated mastery. 

The final step is that I grade the paragraphs in front of them using a rubric. The four categories are: 1) complete sentences, 2) written as a paragraph/complete story, 3) words used to show context, and 4) words used correctly. I use advanced/intermediate/basic/no evidence as my headings. Here's a range of graded paragraph:

I'm seeing the quality and quantity of writing improve every single week. Since implementing boards where the speaker keeps a tally of participation, I've also seen more participation from all group members. The most impressive thing in the pictures at the top of this post is that today, I didn't have groups wandering or off-task much. They worked hard, and did a good job.

And they've using the words more frequently in class in other contexts as well. That's what I really wanted - instruction that is durable and helps them make the world around them more vibrant and understandable. 

This week, students wrote their narrative. Typically, that's a very solitary activity that drags out WAAAAAAAY too long. My goal was to make it as collaborative as possible, and to make the actual writing part take as little time as possible.

I think both of those goals were accomplished.

Over the last seven weeks, they have written short narratives (on Thursdays) based on pictures, or in response to short prompts to get them thinking about their own lives (a time when they fulfilled a character archetype, a heroic act they witnessed or experienced, a time when they failed at something, a time when they faced what felt like their biggest battle, etc.). Those took about 15 minutes each in class, and gave students a wide range of writings to choose to expand into a longer narrative.

The longer narrative could be fiction or non-fiction. The standard we're using is W8.3 - Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

I also gave students the option to write an entirely new narrative, rather than rework one of the ones they'd already written. Many took that option, but the best narratives were the ones that used the stories they had already started in previous weeks.

Since we have been studying story structure, for pre-writing, I asked students to use a plot diagram and complete Somebody Wanted But So Then Finally, as well as the simplified stages of the hero's journey. Then they mapped the rising action as actions/reactions, focusing on overcoming difficulties/obstacles. 

They spent about 30 minutes planning, using that form. The next day, they wrote for about 45 minutes. During that time, I made comments in every single document, and met with students who had less completed or were having trouble getting started. They had about 15 minutes the next day. That was it. 

The vast majority of students were able to produce a reasonable two-page narrative that contained a character who wanted something, and a plot where they faced obstacles, and it came to a climax. Out of almost 90 students, only three submitted nothing. The average score on the rubric was in the 70-80% range, which is pretty good for kids who couldn't ever remember writing anything longer than a paragraph.

​More importantly (to me, given that grades are due) was that I was able to read and score those essays in about 90 minutes total. Here's the rubric I used:

Each of those categories have been a focus of lessons using the Building Thinking Classroom model. In a way, this was an assessment of the skills they've been practising all along.

For Syntax/Punctuation, we've written weekly etymology paragraphs that I've used to help them learn sentence structure and how to show the meaning of a word using context. They've worked on writing complete sentences in 8 pArts, as well as in sentences using the but/because/so framework (and other activities from The Writing Revolution). Some of those things appear in this post, and some in this post.

For Diction/Word Choice, I wrote about the activities I've used from the book Discovering Voice.

For characterisation and plot structure, we've looked at many different texts and analysed how characters move the plot forward, how the details authors use reveal something about the characters (as well as the narrator), and looked at the patterns authors typically use to tell stories.

Importantly, I feel like I have explicitly taught them everything they needed to be successful on this narrative, and they have practised those skills repeatedly over the last nine weeks.

Next week, they will do their first peer edit. In their randomised groups, they'll read out their essays to one another, while one group member creates a plot diagram and maps the story on the board. The other group member will check for where punctuation should be added and write it in. The goals are that they can A) hear their sentences better, and therefore help each other fix them more easily, and B) see what parts of the story others would label as the climax, rising action, etc.

The hope is that the work they've done at the boards up to this point will help facilitate their ability to share their writing. So far, I've seen students more willing to share what they've written with others, and I have to attribute at least some of that to them regularly working with a wide variety of people in class and the culture of trust that's slowly establishing.

Like so many others, I listened to Sold a Story when it came out. However, it wasn't really new information for me.

I've seen the gaps my students had, and the lack of phonics was the only reasonable explanation I saw for why they couldn't spell, and looked at me blankly when I asked them to sound something out, and just guessed or approximated words they didn't know by looking at the first and last letters.

When I moved to NC, I took a job teaching reading intervention to 9th graders. I had experience using SRA Corrective Reading, which I liked. I purchased some of the older workbooks and used it with modest impact in a 10th grade reading intervention program.

But I felt like I needed to understand more about what learning to read looks like, and why it went wrong. So I read probably 15 different books, which led me to Dr. David Kilpatrick's Equipped for Reading Success. I did the phonemic awareness training with my students, as well as did leveled/repeated readings, and talked generally about some phonics rules. Again, I had modest success and many of them improved in fluency and comprehension. But not enough.

This year, I have about two dozen students who have earned A's in ELA for years, but have failed the EOG (the end of year test). Their scores showed that despite their hard work, they weren't able to read well enough to access the skills they had.

​So I went back to Kilpatrick and read Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties. I don't know if there was new information, or if I was just ready to understand it more, but it helped me form a plan to address these students. I know that when I went looking for information or a solid plan for reading intervention in middle school, there wasn't much out there that was specific and focused on older kids. I share this not as an, "I have this all figured out" plan, but as a "This is working so far, and the research is solid" plan.

First, I identified 4-6 students per class period to focus on. I looked for students who were hard working and motivated, but whose test scores and reading assessments showed lagging skills in phonemic awareness, phonics knowledge, fluency, and comprehension. For those skills, I used Kilpatrick's PAST short form, the Pets Fluency passage (instructions), the San Diego Quick assessment, and the district-required Megawords test (note: I don't recommend this - it was by far the least useful piece of information I got). What I'm looking for is automaticity, as well as what mistakes they make. 

The students I chose for small group were mostly decoding around the 5th grade level (these are 8th graders) and had gaps in their phonemic awareness that impacted their ability to successfully complete orthographic mapping. Their fluency impacted comprehension because they worked so hard to decode that they didn't have processing space to also take in what they were reading.

The first group got essentially this pitch: reading shouldn't be as hard as I know it is for you, but the adults in education messed up and made some bad choices about how to teach reading. This is fixable, and if you give me 6-8 weeks of small group time (20 minutes, four times a week), I will help you get better at reading. Are you in? 

I haven't had any student turn me down yet. Today, several of them said that small group was their favourite part of the entire school day. 

I break it up into three parts (based on Kilpatrick's research):

1. Phonemic awareness training, using his One Minute Exercises,
2. Explicit phonics training, which is dynamic and focusing on what I think will make the most impact/the issues that come up as we read, and
3. Modified choral reading of texts just above their reading level with comprehension checks and immediate corrections

The first two take about ten minutes, and the third takes about ten minutes. In my inclusion class, I have two small groups because I have an EC teacher who pushes in. She does the choral reading piece, and I do the first two pieces, and we rotate after ten minutes. So I have about 1/3 of the class in small group.

This week, we're doing One Minute Exercises from several levels where they showed gaps, and interleaving the levels. Some are syllabification, like saying husband without the "hus." Some are modification of middle vowel sounds, like saying "hat", but changing the "a" to "i" and getting "hit." Some are removing part of a blended syllable, like taking the "l" sound out of "clash" to make "cash". After each set of exercises, we talk about what the skill is, and why they're doing it.

Then we've been looking at vowel sounds, and how subsequent vowels in words change the pronunciation (silent e, double consonant, when two vowels go walking, etc.). I've also had them backwards decode words they've seen in etymology, focusing on rime units like "tion"/"sion" and "ent"/"ant". They spell nonsense words as well as real words, and we talk about WHY they are spelled like that.

Finally, we've been reading a 6th grade level text from Common Lit using modified choral reading. The first person in the group reads a sentence, then everyone reads the next sentence, then the second person reads a sentence, then everyone reads the next sentence, etc. until everyone has read. Then the pattern repeats. I stop them when there are audible errors or it seems like their prosody is off and they aren't understanding. 

The biggest barrier is that I'm essentially creating this program from scratch, and that requires a ton of background knowledge. The phonics part is particularly difficult, because most of what exists is for elementary students, and isn't ideal for how I want to present it. Equipped for Reading Success is great, but it isn't a "here's what you teach day 1, day 2, day 3, etc." 

I've heard a ton of ELA teachers at middle/high school level say that they haven't been trained in early literacy, and so can't do this work. I would challenge that idea. I trained myself because that's what I had to do to meet the needs of my students. I've been teaching for 20 years, and the level of literacy has been declining slowly over that time. It happens to coincide with the rise of the three cueing systems and balanced literacy. We, as secondary educators, didn't make those choices for students. But we suffer the consequences. I felt like for me, the only ethical choice was to figure out how to remediate for students who also didn't have a choice in the process. 

Research says that 60-70% of students figure out reading regardless of how they were taught. I do see fewer students than that figure would indicate being able to have the reading skills necessary to read and analyse content on grade level though. They can get by, but it catches them out in middle school when texts and skills get harder, and their reading isn't improving. 

I don't know how to fix this. But I feel better having a plan, and understanding generally what needs to happen to improve. I've read the experts, and I have a class structure that gives me the ability to do this kind of work.

​So why not try?