Overview of Our Structured Literacy Classes
"I would say to anyone thinking about teaching reading to teenagers that it takes time and it's a slow process.
But by the end - the goal is there. And it's awesome. Unbelievable. Always remember - your students can learn!"
~ 10th grade Structured Literacy Class graduate
Our Program's Two Focal Points:
One supports the other
#1: Provide Effective Interventions
#2: Build Belonging Through Literacy
Who We Serve
Our Structured Literacy classes are for young adults with word-level difficulty in reading.
No one - no. one. - is saying literacy ends with reading words. But you can't read for meaning without reading the words.
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.
Where and When We Learn
Our classroom is comfortable, well-equipped, and located right in the middle of things.
Our classes are credit-bearing and scheduled for full Blocks like any other.
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.
What We Teach
We teach language and literacy while connecting deeply with our community.
Because literacy, and the language it supports, builds belonging.
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.
How We Teach: Explicit, Systematic, & Sequential
We improve when we:
1. Maximize opportunities for students to respond.
2. Start with success, practice with success, and end with success.
3. Match the needs of our students with the content we teach.
4. Carefully consider our instructional groupings.
5. Scaffold learning by practicing skills that build upon prior learning.
6. Keep going until the foundational skills are mastered.
(adapted from Archer & Hughes, 2011, p.5) Expand for Details ⬇️
1. Maximize opportunities for students to respond.
This means small classes, group responses, paired reading, and a brisk pace delivered with careful, purposeful planning.
2. Start with success, practice with success, and end with success.
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.
3. Match the needs of our students with the content we teach.
How else will they find success? Teach to a hierarchy of learning.
4. Carefully consider our instructional groupings.
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.
5. Scaffold learning by practicing skills that build upon prior learning.
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.
6. Keep going until the foundational skills are mastered.
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.
