Structured Literacy Interventions with Secondary Students

Focus #1:

Provide Effective Interventions

"When I started this class, there were still a lot of words I couldn't read or even pronounce correctly. Now my vocabulary is so much bigger and I am able to read those longer words.

My advice to high schools thinking about Structured Literacy: first thing - make sure your students have the confidence in themselves to know that they will learn. Make sure they know it's going to be okay."

~ 10th grade Structured Literacy Class graduate

"Make available intensive and individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by trained specialists" (IES, 2008).

The evidence for teaching foundational skills to struggling readers, regardless of age, is strong

The 2008 IES Practice Guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, provides an excellent overview

The 2022 IES Practice Guide, Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9 provides an updated level of detail

Our Curricula: Language & Literacy

Please note:

There are other excellent curricula to choose from. This is just what we have used. I believe our structured literacy program is curriculum agnostic.
We do not teach a curriculum. Rather, we teach our students to read and write. We use these curricula as tools. I have yet to find one that serves the needs of our most struggling young adults "right out of the box." Our structured literacy classes are for students who have not made progress with other interventions.

Equipped For Reading Success

To explicitly teach phonemic awareness. We incorporate letters into the curriculum

Wilson Reading System

We focus on reading and spelling patterns, practice, and fluency

From Talking to Writing

To explicitly teach both spoken and written language

And ... once students are decoding unknown words (instead of guessing and predicting) we supplement our lessons with uncontrolled "authentic" texts

If our students revert to guessing at words, then they aren't quite ready yet and we focus on building rigorous reading habits with controlled/decodable text. Why?

We aren't just teaching phonics. We are attempting to rebuild habits of reading, from skipping over trouble spots to noting the precise order of letters in written words, knowing what sounds those letters represent effortlessly, and blending accurately into words.

This can take a full year (and sometimes more) for some students. It's incredibly difficult - and a main obstacle to progress for our older students. A routine for previewing "not yet" words is found in the 2022 IES Practice Guide, Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9 (Vaughn et al., 2022, page 7).

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