Ensuring Success for Middle-Grade Readers: Strategies To Apply Now
Dr. Jason D. DeHart is a teacher at Wilkes Central High School in North Carolina, and was an assistant professor of reading education at Appalachian State University. DeHart's research interests include multimodal literacy, including film and graphic novels, and literacy instruction with adolescents. He taught middle grades English/Language Arts for eight years and continues to work to keep current with trends in education. DeHart’s work has recently appeared in SIGNAL Journal, English Journal, and The Social Studies, and he has a co-edited the volume, Connecting Theory and Practice in Middle School Literacy, to be released by Routledge later this year. He is passionate about literacy, inclusivity, engaged reading, and authentic writing practices.
It is sometimes hastily assumed that older students arrive in middle school with the skills they need to meet the demands of their classes. Adolescents certainly have much in their favor—they have lived a little longer, are often beginning to accumulate cultural knowledge, and are developing a keener sense of self.
However, not all students work on the same level of expertise when it comes to the skills that are most critical for success. These students still need educators who are mindful of areas for strength and support.
In this post, I outline five strategies for developing stronger adolescent readers, and in my upcoming webinar will be expanding on these strategies along with specific examples of each. With some reflection and the proper tools, we can help our students achieve and grow.
Setting Purpose
Reading is a skill that is like a skeleton key for content not only in English/Language Arts but across curriculum. This means reading tasks in each subject have a lot in common—but they may also vary, depending on the kind of background knowledge and understanding a text includes. Often, at the secondary level, students are dealing with many parts of their lives at once, therefore taking the time to situate a learning task and link content across curriculum can help unveil some of the process for a young reader.
This work of “setting the stage” can be practiced in reflecting and sharing thoughtful responses about the “why” of reading tasks. If students cannot see the purpose, it might seem as though we are merely offering up another salad of words with little attention to the meal that comes after making sense of text.
Assessing With Intention
Knowing our students, their areas of giftedness, and spots for growing is essential. In a typical semester, I have a range of assessments that are available to me—usually at least three standardized forms of testing, including progress monitoring to inform instruction. The reality is that, depending on the year, the number of unique assessments can be much greater. In addition to these standardized assessments, my students are reading and writing daily in one way or another.
The opportunities for assessment are great, and I have learned to be skilled in noticing patterns among assessments offered. This work of noticing patterns does not mean I never encountered puzzling cases, but the fact that I can use assessment to notice them is a step toward growth.
Once I have established the purpose and thought about the needs of my students, the real fun of instruction begins.
Teaching With Attention
This is the “in the weeds” work of reading—selecting tasks, deciding on structures, and prioritizing what is important. I have taught for almost two decades in public schools and consistently find the need to be creative in my instruction.
Because of the work I have done beforehand, I can anticipate areas of struggle that students might face. This means background knowledge can be built beforehand or within the work of reading itself. I can also anticipate words that might present difficulties for students, as well as complex sentence patterns.
None of this awareness means we do not tackle complex texts, but it does mean I am thoughtful about how much work I am doing to support. A reading lesson without teacher support or silent, independent sustained work creates mystery about how the connections are happening for students until the post-assessment arrives. On the other hand, work that is teacher-focused might just mean complicity among students without building the skills we are after.
Setting a Plan With Flexibility
All of these considerations mean that modeling (and feedback) is essential. Reading mastery cannot be assumed, from the word level to building larger connections for comprehension and fluency.
With so much happening in literacy, it can be daunting to model everything. I suggest a one-step-at-a-time approach that can then be tailored for individual groups of students. This means a think-aloud can take place around how to navigate a word, make sense of a complex sentence, or synthesize information across an entire passage.
Understanding how texts work and how reading works is a two-edged benefit for the educator, reading to slice through reading frustration. Teachers must be given the strongest resources possible so they can demonstrate the steps for navigating high-quality, challenging texts.
Connecting
Finally, a great reading lesson concludes on paper but does not actually end at all. The ideas and approaches shared within text (or context) should be viewed as one more block in the building of success for students. By constantly calling back to texts and the skills built around them, educators can weave the classroom story and help students notice the progress they are making.
Reading calls for some kind of response—often, in my class, this takes the shape of writing. As someone who has taught composition at the college level, I am always thinking about how to scaffold my students for whatever opportunities they want to pursue. As with reading, writing is a process, and the connection is often the part of the lesson where I can ensure what we have explored has found solid ground in my students’ thinking.
Be sure to check out my EDVIEW360 webinar about this topic, during which I discuss strategies in more detail. I hope you’ll join me! You can register here.