Effective Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties

For use with struggling readers in Grades 6–8, this book arms literacy teachers with the why and how of effective, evidence-based instruction. Includes more than 20 step-by-step sample lessons for strengthening fluency, comprehension, word recognition, and vocabulary.

Reading problems don’t disappear when students enter middle school—recent studies show that nearly a quarter of today’s eighth graders aren’t able to read at a basic level.* This book arms language arts teachers with the lessons, strategies, and foundational knowledge they need to resolve older students’ reading difficulties and increase their chances for academic success.

Ideal for use with struggling readers in Grades 6–8, this book clearly lays out the fundamentals of effective teaching for adolescents with reading difficulties. Teachers will discover how to:

• Select and administer assessments for comprehension, fluency, and word recognition
• Use assessment results to plan individualised instruction
• Apply research-supported instructional practices
• Develop flexible grouping systems so students get the targeted instruction they need
• Set manageable short-term learning goals with students
• Keep the pacing of instruction quick and energetic so students stay engaged
• Give appropriate positive and corrective feedback
• Monitor student progress over time
• Promote generalisation of new reading skills
• Provide effective interventions within a school-wide Response to Intervention framework

To help teachers incorporate evidence-based practices into their classroom instruction, they’ll get more than 20 complete, step-by-step sample lessons for strengthening adolescents’ reading skills. Easy to adapt for use across any curriculum, the sample lessons provide explicit models of successful instruction, with suggested teacher scripts, checklists for planning instruction, key terms and objectives, strategies for guided and independent practice, tips on promoting generalisation, and more.

With this practical guide to high-quality instruction, middle school teachers will help struggling readers develop the skills they need to master complex academic content and succeed inside and outside the classroom.