\n<\/p>\n
Loralyn LaBombard is the only reading specialist at Bow Memorial School, a middle school serving grades 5-8 in a leafy town outside Concord, N.H.<\/p>\n
In the world of literacy education, that is not an unusual distinction. After elementary school, many schools reduce or eliminate positions for supporting struggling readers.<\/p>\n
But several years ago, LaBombard started to feel like student needs were outpacing what she could handle. More middle schoolers needed help with foundational skills, like decoding words, and many students had the same gaps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not sustainable,\u201d LaBombard remembered thinking. She wanted a way to reach more kids at once, and, just as importantly, help them build a community. \u201cWhen you have a group of students who are all struggling in the same area, they make mistakes, they learn from each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Spearheaded by LaBombard, Bow has since launched an ambitious program to tackle foundational reading difficulties. In specialized classes across grades 5-8, students learn how to break down complex, multisyllabic words, improve their spelling, and practice reading fluently\u2014all while also digging into novels and other whole books.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an innovative solution to a surprisingly common problem that has become more acute of late: What do teachers do when their middle or high school students struggle to read?<\/p>\n
New data provide a sobering look at the scope of the issue. In a nationally representative, online survey of nearly 700 educators conducted this fall by the EdWeek Research Center, the vast majority of respondents said at least some middle and high school students in their districts struggled with basic reading skills. Almost a quarter of educators said the majority of middle and high schoolers in their districts struggled.<\/p>\n
Educators in the survey cited a number of reasons for this problem\u2014their students weren\u2019t motivated to read, couldn\u2019t read fluently or automatically enough, or didn\u2019t have enough stamina. But underlying these perceived causes is likely something more fundamental, researchers say. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople still don\u2019t understand that for so many adolescents who struggle with reading, their difficulty begins at the word level,\u201d said Jessica Toste, an associate professor of special education at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies intervention for students with persistent reading challenges.<\/p>\n
Bow is at the forefront of trying to crack that instructional problem at scale. It\u2019s taken careful planning and dedicated staff, but it\u2019s a model that other schools can replicate, educators there say. Now, students in Bow\u2019s structured literacy classes are making faster average reading progress than the rest of the school. This year\u2019s 8th graders have seen eight times as much reading growth on interim assessments over the past three years as their peers who aren\u2019t in the program. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe students started to share, \u2018It\u2019s the first time that I feel comfortable reading aloud,\u2019\u201d said LaBombard. \u201cThe data speaks. There\u2019s an incredible amount of buy-in now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A picture-postcard New England town between two of New Hampshire\u2019s largest cities, Bow is surrounded by forests and trails. Only about 6% of the middle school\u2019s 500 students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. <\/p>\n
But as Jessica Brown, the district director of special education put it, \u201cWe\u2019re not immune\u201d to reading difficulties. Four years ago, coming out of the COVID pandemic, the district was trying to figure out how to better support older readers with big gaps in their foundational reading skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was right post-COVID,\u201d said Kelly Ardita, the special education student-services coordinator at the school. \u201cWe had a lot of kids who missed out on that direct, phonetic instruction. They had it behind a camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students who received special education services met one-on-one with case managers, including LaBombard. But not all had her background in providing effective word-reading interventions.<\/p>\n
Nationally, while more states and districts are now requiring young students to get explicit, systematic instruction in skills like phonics that set children up for reading success later on, many older readers are missing some of these critical building blocks.<\/p>\n
Some may have never been flagged for reading intervention early on and need basic sound-letter instruction to \u201ccrack the code of how language works,\u201d said UT-Austin\u2019s Toste. But more commonly, she said, older kids and teenagers who can decode short, phonetically regular words such as \u201ccat\u201d and \u201cdog\u201d have trouble with more complex, multisyllabic words. <\/p>\n
Those are the kind that start to show up not just in English classes but in science, math, and social studies too: \u201cphotosynthesis,\u201d \u201cunbelievable,\u201d or \u201ctransportation,\u201d for example. A typically developing reader might apply their decoding skills intuitively, Toste said. But there\u2019s a group of students who need more explicit instruction to make that leap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose multisyllabic words, they often carry the content or meaning of the text,\u201d said Kelly Williams, an associate professor of special education at the University of Georgia.<\/p>\n
Research bears this out. Several studies over the past five years have found that middle-grades students whose decoding ability was below a set point\u2014a \u201cdecoding threshold\u201d\u2014make much slower progress in vocabulary and comprehension over time than their peers. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know exactly how many middle and high schoolers fall in this group. Reading tests for older students are usually general measures of comprehension, not diagnostic measures that probe into underlying component parts of reading difficulty.<\/p>\n
But at least one study, published in 2022, suggests that a large share of children have word-reading difficulties beyond 3rd grade. The research examined the third of American 4th graders who scored below basic on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and found that this group struggled to understand multisyllabic words, especially those with three or more syllables. <\/p>\n
Even so, services often disappear when students leave elementary school.<\/p>\n
Only about 60% of the middle school educators in the EdWeek Research Center survey said their schools or districts provided support for struggling adolescent readers, like dedicated intervention time or screening tests. Fewer\u2014only a third\u2014of high school educators said the same.<\/p>\n
Then there are the logistical challenges. Fitting in time for reading support classes competes with departmentalized schedules and credit requirements that students must meet for graduation. And middle and high school English\/language arts teachers, trained to be content-area experts, rarely have a background in teaching foundational reading skills.<\/p>\n
LaBombard, or \u201cDr. L,\u201d as she\u2019s known at Bow, has a relentless energy. At the front of the reading classroom, she operates like a conductor: gesturing to the students she wants to speak up, then tracing letters on the board, finally throwing up her arms with joy as students deliver a correct answer.<\/p>\n
She greets students by name walking down the hallways, asking about their other classes, their swim meets, their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see myself in so many of the kids I work with,\u201d LaBombard said. She struggled with reading and math throughout school. \u201cMy guidance counselor told me not to go to college,\u201d she said. LaBombard left his office determined to prove him wrong. Later, she dedicated her doctoral dissertation to him. <\/p>\n
LaBombard\u2019s expertise and passion built up \u201ca perfect storm\u201d to get the structured literacy program at Bow off the ground, said Brown, the district special education director.<\/p>\n
At Bow, LaBombard found her road map from one of the few districts in the country that has been doing this work with adolescents for more than a decade: Mountain Views Supervisory Union in Vermont. There, educator Julie Burtscher Brown launched a program for middle and high school students to provide explicit, systematic instruction in word-reading and spelling, coupled with time to practice in real books.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat our model demonstrates is that it\u2019s absolutely possible to do this, even in a small rural school without a lot of extra resources or staffing, if we follow the research and work collaboratively together to find a way to provide effective instruction,\u201d said Burtscher Brown, in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s important on a philosophical level and a moral level, because it\u2019s our students\u2019 right to be fully literate. If we really believe that, we need to ensure that no child is graduating without the skills needed to be fully independent in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaBombard knew Burtscher Brown professionally, and remembered thinking, we could do this here.<\/p>\n
During the 2022-23 school year, LaBombard approached Kerri Harris, a special education teacher at Bow, who already taught a special education reading class that focused mostly on comprehension. LaBombard pitched turning it into a structured literacy class for 7th and 8th graders, and team-teaching\u2014integrating the word-level instruction that LaBombard had been providing to students one-on-one.<\/p>\n
In summer 2023, blessed with district permission and some creative scheduling from Bow\u2019s leaders, the two teachers planned the year ahead on trail runs through the New Hampshire woods. They brainstormed how to repurpose intervention materials they already used in one-on-one instruction to fit a whole class setting.<\/p>\n
Having district support and a team of dedicated educators makes a program like this more likely to be successful, said Burtscher Brown. \u201cIt\u2019s not just one teacher in a building understanding what kind of instruction needs to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the leadership team empowering the teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n
In middle school, where English teachers can feel pressure to move fast to cover the many standards students need to master, the class led by LaBombard and Harris would work differently.<\/p>\n
They would track students\u2019 progress toward mastering the foundational skills they needed to read words quickly and accurately. \u201cWe only move on when we\u2019re ready to move on,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Now in its third year, the 7th and 8th grade structured literacy classes have become fixtures on the schedule. Bow has since expanded the program, offering structured literacy in 5th and 6th grade as well. LaBombard works with both of those teachers, while Harris has taken on the older students solo. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s a co-teaching model,\u201d said LaBombard. \u201cI\u2019m trying to build capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a sunny October morning this year in the 8th grade class, Harris was introducing a new set of suffixes\u2014appendages like \u201c-less\u201d and \u201c-est\u201d\u2014to her group of eight students. Learning how to identify word parts like these, and understanding how they modify bases, can help students more easily decode and understand new multisyllabic words while reading.<\/p>\n
Harris led the class in chanting the suffixes together, then went on to define each in turn and ask the students for examples of words that include them. \u201cThey all have meaning,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Later, she would connect this lesson in morphology and multisyllabic decoding to the young adult novel that students were reading as a class.<\/p>\n
Reading aloud from the book, Harris asked students to follow along and note all of the words that ended in the suffixes they just learned. Most of these words are adverbs and adjectives that describe how the characters act, she said. She asked: What do these words reveal about their personalities?<\/p>\n
The opportunity to immediately practice multisyllabic word-reading in authentic text is crucial, said LaBombard, in an earlier interview. \u201cA lot of times, students see this as an isolated skill, and they don\u2019t transfer it,\u201d she said. \u201cI want my students to not only read controlled text, I want them to read good literature. It\u2019s the hardest part to fit in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris keeps the class moving quickly, with the kind of dry humor that wins grudging respect from preteens. (\u201cSurprise,\u201d she deadpanned, before she began to read aloud, \u201cI want you to highlight evidence.\u201d)<\/p>\n
From the start, she and LaBombard tried to head off any stigma or shame that could come with being enrolled in the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very frank conversations with them,\u201d Harris said. They talk with the students about how literacy skills will help them with their goals, in and outside of school. If students start to make fun of each other, Harris said, \u201cwe nip that in the bud real quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 8th grade classroom, a quiet space set back from the building\u2019s main hallways, autumn light filters in wide windows through red and gold leaves, illuminating student work on the walls. It was important that the class not be in the \u201cdregs\u201d of the building, where so many special education courses are relegated in schools, LaBombard said.<\/p>\n
This attention to the student experience has paid off, said Shannon Bader, the mother of a current 8th grader. Her son Fletcher is in his second year of structured literacy classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can walk in, and say, \u2018This is what we\u2019re working on, and I don\u2019t get it. I don\u2019t understand; I missed a step,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe feels safe to say that. No one else in the class is going to say he\u2019s dumb.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bader was initially skeptical of the program. Fletcher had received speech, language, and reading intervention since before kindergarten. She worried about him missing content-area instruction for reading classes in middle school. \u201cI was very anxious about it,\u201d she said. \u201cDr. L said, \u2018Give it a chance. Give it a try.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, she thinks the foundational instruction Fletcher gets in word-reading is propelling him forward in his other classes. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the preparation,\u201d she said. Learning how to break down complex math and science terminology frees up more of his brain space to focus on content demands. \u201cThat is no longer taking up his full energy,\u201d Bader said.<\/p>\n
Fletcher offered a more mixed review.<\/p>\n
The class\u2019s regular skill practice can feel repetitive, he said, and he still wouldn\u2019t say he likes to read. But he\u2019s learned to pay more attention to his spelling. And the writing structures Harris has taught has made it easier for him to get down a full thought on paper, he added.<\/p>\n
Having someone break down the reading and writing process, he said, \u201cI found that it helped a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the structured literacy program has grown, so have the districtwide systems that prop it up. And within Bow, LaBombard and her colleagues are slowly integrating more opportunities for reading support throughout the school day.<\/p>\n
In the spring, she and the special education case manager for 5th grade meet with the 4th grade teachers at Bow Elementary to review student data. They identify which kids are struggling with decoding and might be good candidates for the 5th grade structured literacy class. Most, but not all, of these students have been identified for special education services.<\/p>\n
For some students, one year of support is all they need. Last school year, three 5th graders in the class were able to \u201cexit\u201d intervention and no longer needed additional classes. LaBombard sees the early support as preventative: \u201cI truly believe it would have been a special education referral at some point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Others have been in the class for multiple years. Ultimately, LaBombard said, the goal is to get to a place where these students can exit, too.<\/p>\n
Schoolwide, 5th and 6th grade teachers are taking LETRS, a professional learning course on evidence-based reading instruction. Depending on their needs, some students still receive one-on-one intervention. And Bow is piloting a new reading class this year, for students who don\u2019t struggle with word-level decoding, but need help with other elements like fluency or reading comprehension. Co-taught by LaBombard and English teacher Alexandra Stewart, it operates as an extra English period, which students can choose to take in place of a foreign language. It enrolls both students who have and have not been identified as needing extra reading support.<\/p>\n
Still, all of these structures\u2014dedicated reading classes, a school full of teachers trained in foundational reading science\u2014will end when 8th graders at Bow move on to high school. At that level, \u201cyou don\u2019t look at discrete skills as much as, how do I have a comprehensive plan to get this student to graduate?,\u201d said Brown, the district special education coordinator. <\/p>\n
But the teachers at Bow hope that the work they\u2019re doing will buoy their students as they make the leap to 9th grade. Stewart, who just started working with LaBombard in the reading class this year, is already seeing dividends.<\/p>\n
In a role in a previous district, she worked with 9th graders who were mostly reading at a kindergarten level. By that point, she said, \u201cit\u2019s like triage. What do they need to survive in a literate world?\u201d Middle school intervention offers something different and more powerful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t survival,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about, what do they need to reach their potential?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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