5 Strategies for Struggling Readers in Middle School

You’ve probably heard all the hype around the Science of Reading (SOR). Sounds pretty great, right? Research-based approaches to reading, sign me up! But a quick Google search turns out results like phonics, decoding, and phonemic awareness – topics we don’t usually cover in middle school ELA. So, where does that leave you when looking for strategies for struggling readers?

While a large portion of SOR focuses on lower-elementary, that doesn’t mean we have to throw it out the window completely. There are still valuable tools and strategies for struggling readers supported by SOR.

What is the Science of Reading?

If we’re being honest, the Science of Reading just wasn’t a topic of conversation when I was in the classroom. Even nowadays, it’s mostly commonly talked about in elementary school. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not useful for middle school teachers.

Science of Reading refers to the research that has been collected about how a child learns to read. SOR isn’t about one study or even one definition but a collection of research and its findings.

Through this research, scientists learned that a lot of students need explicit reading instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Of course, research is always changing, so how we understand reading will, too.

Why do Students Struggle with Reading?

For most students, by the time they reach middle school, they have a good foundation in reading. They can identify sounds in spoken words (phonemic awareness) and understand how groups of letters make a sound (phonics). But as you know, reading is way more than being able to sound out letters on a page.

In middle school, you probably notice struggles with fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Some of those come with practice and experience (an 8th grader is going to know more vocabulary than a 5th grader), but what if students are just generally behind?

If you have students who are struggling to read, go back to the basics of SOR: fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Does the student have good fluency? Is their vocabulary lacking? Both of these areas are going to affect comprehension. 

How to Help Struggling Readers in the Classroom

So, you understand the Science of Reading, but what does that mean for your instruction? The good news is you’re probably already using a lot of research-based strategies without even realizing it. Here are a few strategies for struggling readers that are backed by SOR.

#1 Utilize Summarization

Do you students stink at writing summaries? Mine always did. That’s because it’s a lot harder to write a summary than you might think. After reading, have students summarize what they read, focusing on the main points.

Research tells us that students summarizing has one of the biggest effects on comprehension. It requires students to consider all the information they’ve read and identify the most important points. It also can’t be done without solid comprehension of what you’ve read. I recommend explicitly teaching summarization by modeling the process for students and using mentor texts.

#2 Get Explicit

One of the best strategies for struggling readers is to simply not beat around the bush. Explicitly teach students. This can be done through scaffolding learning into bite-sized chunks, modeling the process, providing feedback on learning, and more. It also involved a gradual release, so students slowly take on more challenging tasks.

Research tells us that being explicit makes learning more accessible and promotes higher-level thinking because it creates a really solid foundation for students learning. If you have students struggling in your classroom, take it way back to the basics and teach them explicitly.

#3 Implement Self-Monitoring

Another strategy for struggling readers is to teach them how to self-monitor. If you’ve ever been reading, only to realize your eyes were moving but nothing entered your brain – you know the importance of self-monitoring. When students check in on themselves, they stop to ask questions. What do I take away from that paragraph? Am I confused about anything so far?

It’s a lot easier to course correct when a student finds themselves lost a few paragraphs in rather than after they’ve read a whole chapter. Of course, this isn’t a natural skill for students, but you can model it by stopping and asking questions during whole class readings or even small group reading.

#4 Teach Word Parts and Context Clues

Add this to your list of strategies for struggling readers: no more drill-and-kill vocabulary. Students don’t learn by memorizing words or writing them down on a sheet of paper. Instead, research says to teach vocabulary using word parts and context clues.

If a student is lacking vocabulary, they are going to struggle with comprehension. (Obviously, this depends on the context. We are talking about grade-level texts, not advanced physics textbooks.) So, if you want to improve comprehension, you need solid vocabulary strategies.

Explicitly teach students how to use context clues. For example, stop while reading and model the process for students. Also, take time to talk about roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

#5 Make Connections

This strategy for struggling readers is one you’ve probably used before. You likely talk about text connections in your classroom, like text-to-text and text-to-world. This is a well-researched strategy for building comprehension based on students’ prior knowledge.

For struggling readers, being able to connect not only shows that they comprehend what they’ve read but also deepens their understanding. Plus, this is the foundation of being able to synthesize, which is where students move into critical thinking.

The Science of Reading has been a huge topic in education lately, but it’s not often talked about in middle school. I hope these strategies for struggling readers helped you see that you’re already using SOR in your classroom, even if you didn’t realize it.