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Perhaps you’re familiar with the Science of Reading—the large (and still-growing) body of research that details how children learn to read and informs instructional best practices to get them there.

And perhaps you also know how important it is to provide kids with evidence-based practices for reading instruction—and how, as the most effective way to make sure that every kid can learn to read, it’s truly a matter of equity in education.

But did you know that the Science of Reading is not just about building foundational skills like phonological and phonemic awareness? It’s not just about how the littlest kids learn to recognize letters and words on a page. The need for research-informed instruction doesn’t go away once kids make the initial shift from not reading to reading. In fact, it’s essential throughout their reading journey—from the earliest years through grade school, and most certainly in the middle school classroom.

Let’s explore why middle schoolers need research-based literacy instruction, and take a look at how teachers can deliver it.

The Science of Reading and middle school literacy

Our brains are wired to learn spoken language, but they are not automatically wired for reading. They don’t just know that certain marks on a page are designed to represent sounds or meanings. That’s why—as the Science of Reading confirms—we have to teach reading explicitly and systematically. Learning to read actually rewires the brain by creating new neural connections and enhancing existing ones.

And when it comes to brain development, middle school is a big moment. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher-order thinking and executive function, is still maturing. It’s flexible, adaptable, and perfectly situated to receive the explicit instruction provided by research-based reading instruction.

Students in middle school have typically reached a certain level of automaticity with encoding and decoding. They’ve got the full—and finite—set of phonics skills under their belt, and they’re able to apply them across new and different contexts, even as vocabulary becomes more complex and unfamiliar.

But although this decoding practice remains important, students in middle school are typically able to shift more cognitive energy toward language comprehension.

And we know that background knowledge is crucial for language comprehension—the more prior knowledge you bring to a text, the better you understand it. That’s why middle school presents a major opportunity to deliver strategic and specific instruction in both language comprehension and background knowledge.

Leveraging the power of the Science of Reading

How might you take advantage of this unique developmental moment to accelerate student literacy? Here’s a glimpse at some of the approaches èßäAV Chief Academic Officer and Vice President of ELA Deb Sabin explores in this :

• Choose complex grade-level texts that help build students’ background knowledge and expose them to a variety of structures and genres. Exposure and access to grade-appropriate content is crucial for educational equity and helps all students stay on target toward reading goals.
• Provide explicit comprehension instruction to help students interpret texts and build mental models for understanding. You might employ graphic organizers or encourage performance for deeper understanding and engagement.
• Incorporate writing prompts into core instruction. More and more research shows that writing has a strong impact on comprehension, helping students crystallize their understanding while also exposing gaps.
• Focus on fluency. Research connects oral reading practice to improved comprehension. You might have students practice reading specific passages aloud, encouraging them not only to work on rate and accuracy, but also to reflect on which words they choose to emphasize and why.

That’s just a peek at how you can bring the power of research-based reading instruction to your middle schoolers. To learn more, check out the following resources:

• Download our Science of Reading infographic to learn more about how the Science of Reading supports middle schoolers.
• Review our infographic, Four steps for improving literacy in middle school, shares evidence-based practices to equip middle school students with the strategies they need excel.
• Read through our resource, Providing strong writing instruction in middle school, to help your middle schoolers become strong, skilled writers.