How many more times do we have to hear from NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) that 30 to 40 percent of middle and high school students are struggling and/or can’t read?
It’s a catch-22. Because reading is difficult for them, older struggling readers don’t like to read, and therefore they don’t read. As a result and over time, vocabulary, sentence structure, comprehension, and academic language become less familiar, and these students begin to fall further and further behind.
In Carver, Massachusetts, 11th grader Noah Pina explained to a group of educators, including myself, how an intervention program changed his life. Noah started the curriculum last year reading at approximately a fifth grade level and is now reading at a 10th grade level!
