Structured Literacy is in addition to their "regular" English (with a few exceptions due to scheduling). This allows us to focus in on the most foundational skill deficits.
We serve students lacking "Minimum Basic Skill Proficiency" (Shinn, 2021).
We offer a second class, Structured Writing, for students working on fluency and facility with language - both written and spoken.
Of course, we work on fluency and language in Structured Literacy class, too! Every day. But these young people are still learning to decode -- 18 is just around the corner and there is a real sense of urgency and moral purpose.
Our mixed-grade classes (grades 7-12) are no larger than 4-6 students. The greater the needs, the smaller the class. We carefully group students in the spring for the following year, considering instructional goals before grade levels.
If we want our literacy students to feel like they belong, why do schools so often send them to a cramped office at the end of a corridor? When it's time for class they physically have to turn away from their friends. That is not respecting their dignity.
What are we telling our struggling readers with their classrooms? What are we telling their teachers? Who is valued, and who is an after-thought?
LeDerick Horne reminds us in a HTH Unboxed podcast that yes, there is a politics of placement and that architecture will start teaching before teachers do (Patton, 2014).
If we want to communicate to our emerging readers, "You are welcomed and respected in this school" and "Reading difficulty is nothing to be ashamed of" then we simply communicate that in the most tangible way possible: a classroom just like any other.
The link between literacy and emotional well-being is well documented (Dykstra, 2021; Hempenstall, 2018).
Our students are often frustrated, filled with shame, and distrustful of themselves and of the adults in their lives. Repeated failure, daily failure, exacts a heavy emotional toll, indeed. Low literacy, beginning at a very early age, can begin to separate children from their community.
For examples of connecting literacy with community, please visit our Building Belonging page on this site.
(adapted from Archer & Hughes, 2011, p.5) Expand for Details ⬇️
This means small classes, group responses, paired reading, and a brisk pace delivered with careful, purposeful planning.
Success brings investment. Success begets success. Success respects the dignity of a young person struggling to read. Success is important to plan for as a teacher of adolescent emerging readers.
Ensuring success is often the most emotionally demanding part of our work. Why? Because telling young adults they are doing well is not nearly enough. We need to lead them to a place where they themselves can see success. Where they begin to take ownership of their successful literacy journey.
How else will they find success? Teach to a hierarchy of learning.
Hours each spring are spent considering the needs of our current and future students and which groupings are most likely to lead to success. We plan, consider, reshuffle, review, and slowly come to the best decision we can. It matters. A lot. In middle and high school, schedules don't change very easily. We are planning for a year.
We support successful learning with modeling and by breaking tasks into discrete steps. To the point of pre-correcting a mistake if needed. Lessons provide steady feedback and encouragement with an "I do, we do, ya'll do, you do" pattern.
Their journey to reading can take a single year, or it can take three+ years. We trust the research and the data and we keep working.