Every Educator Is a Reading Teacher: Strategies for Meeting Students Exactly Where They Are
This article was developed with contributions from SchoolWorks Project Manager Judy Rush.
September inevitably drops an ever-familiar puzzle in the laps of educators: that old summer slide.
Most students, regardless of where they left off in June, have not done nearly as much reading over break as they did when school was in session. Assessments given at the top of the school year will show some backsliding, no matter how strong a reader the child is. It makes the data a little messy to interpret, but no less, the data is valuable. It provides a grounding, meaningful place to start.
And that starting point belongs to everyone in a school, not just classroom teachers or literacy specialists. Reading comprehension is not confined to language arts. It's the foundation underneath science, math, social studies, and everything else a student encounters as they expand their learning. School leadership, instructional coaches, counselors, and specialists all have a hand in it too.
In other words: everyone, really, is a reading teacher.
The challenge, and the opportunity, is connecting the dots between the data, the student, and the instruction that can help each child’s literacy take a big step forward.
Start With the Data. Don't Worry If It's Messy.
District assessments help kick off the start of a school year, which means data will be captured when kids are unsettled and in a big transition moment. That timing may make it tempting to dismiss the results. But honoring that standardized data, and considering reading as a starting conversation rather than a verdict, gives educators a rooted place to begin.
The challenge is holding two things at once: meeting each kid exactly where they are while simultaneously delivering the required curriculum. Think of this as a skill worth building. It's not about choosing between the standard and the student. Instead, it is about finding where those two things meet.
Teachers, but also anyone in a school leadership role, can benefit from start-of-year data, and not just to track reading levels, but to understand what's happening with individual kids more broadly.
Data can sometimes even help decode behavior. For example, a student trying to escape a classroom has a story behind that behavior. Connecting their individual data to whatever task made them want to leave can start to point an educator toward what is actually going on.
Get to Know the Reader, Not Just the Reading Level.
The old adage makes a good point: it's not that a student can't read; it's that they haven't found the right book yet. Data can reveal a reading level. It cannot reveal what sparks a kid's curiosity. That takes getting to know the student.
A few simple starter questions at the top of a school year can reveal a lot:
- Who reads unprompted?
- Who says they don't read?
- Who only reads when someone is watching?
- Who refuses to read at all?
None of these questions replace the data. They sit alongside it. Matching the two is like a gentle dance. It is never going to be a perfect science, but when educators marry what the data shows with what they know about the student as a person, that can help connect the dots so educators can provide the student with the support they need.
Why Does Background Knowledge Matter?
Part of getting a struggling reader unstuck is not about drilling more skills. Instead, it's about building background knowledge that lets those skills stick. That is the core finding behind what's often called The Knowledge Gap.
Consider the baseball study. In 1987, researchers took seventh- and eighth-graders and sorted them by two factors: how well they scored on a standardized reading test and how much they knew about baseball. Everyone read the same passage about a baseball game. The results cut against the assumption that comprehension is mostly a general skill. What made the difference was the baseball knowledge itself. The "poor readers" who knew the sport well ended up outperforming the "good readers" who did not know much about baseball before engaging in the required reading.
Researcher Natalie Wexler describes gaining knowledge as working like Velcro: the more knowledge a student already has, the more easily new information can attach to it and stick. Students who come to a lesson with a strong foundation around the subject, have something to connect new ideas to, making it easier to understand, remember, and build on what they learn. Students without that foundation face a different challenge. They may be perfectly capable of learning the material, but without the background knowledge to connect new information to, each new lesson can be harder to grasp. The gap can widen over time making it harder and harder to “catch up.”
Consider how to build background knowledge early and deliberately, especially for students who are not yet strong readers. It is not a detour from literacy instruction. It is a core component of literacy instruction. And that responsibility stretches well beyond the ELA classroom into any subject where a teacher is asking students to make sense of a text.
Build Routines That Help Kids Think.
Once a school has a read on where students are, through data and through relationships, routines are what make the daily work sustainable. Clear expectations matter, but they work best when educators remember that they are connected to instruction. Expectations in a classroom are not a separate behavior system bolted onto the side of teaching.
Here are two routines worth building deliberately, in any classroom or setting:
- Turn-and-talks:
Giving students structured moments to think out loud builds both comprehension and confidence, and it gives educators a low-stakes way to hear what's landing.
- Wait time.
After asking a question, pause before calling on anyone. When a student answers, pause again before moving on, so the room has time to process what was just said. Researcher and educator Mary Budd Rowe reminds us: "slowing down may be a way of speeding up." When educators resist the urge to fill every silence, students think more, participate more, and go deeper.
Rereading Helps Foster Literacy.
Researchers John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey have spent years synthesizing what moves the needle on student learning. As we begin a new school year, consider this finding of theirs related to literacy:
Getting kids to read something more than once produces real, measurable growth.
These researchers are studying why so many kids stop wanting to reread stories around third or fourth grade, when younger children do it constantly and happily.
Look for opportunities to encourage that natural pull toward re-reading. Building opportunities to discover what a student wants to read again will help educators learn more about the student’s passion and curiosity. The data shows us this will not be a hindrance. It will grow literacy skills.
Improving Literacy Will Never Be a Perfect Science.
As the new school year gets underway, use the data to start the conversation about where your students are right now. Let those insights inform decisions so routines can be built. And stay flexible.
Take the time to get to know the kids in front of you.
What are their strengths, their interests, their frustrations, and the things that make them lean in?
Then bring all that information together.
It's a gentle dance, coordinated to fit each individual student, and it will never be a perfect science. The goal is not to find one strategy that works for every reader. It is to build a school where every educator has the knowledge, tools, and shared responsibility to help every student move forward. When that happens, literacy growth does not stay contained to one classroom or one subject. It becomes part of how a school teaches, learns, and continuously improves.
This article was developed with contributions from SchoolWorks Project Manager Judy Rush.
Here at SchoolWorks, we help schools and districts build systems where improvement is not a one-time initiative, but an ongoing cycle of learning, reflection, and growth.
If you are looking to learn more about SchoolWorks’ Instructional Supports including cycles of observation, feedback, and targeted professional learning; and Learning Walk Trainings, reach out to us anytime at hello@schoolworks.org.
Sources: John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey's Visible Learning research and webinar; Natalie Wexler on "the knowledge gap" and the baseball study; Mary Budd Rowe's research on wait time.