Much of the focus has remained on ensuring students learn the fundamentals of how to read in the earliest grades, usually prior to 3rd grade.<\/p>\n
But a growing number of students in recent years have transitioned past 3rd grade without those foundational skills, putting them at risk of falling further behind as reading texts become increasingly complex and other courses\u2014like algebra and history, for example\u2014rely on kids\u2019 ability to build their knowledge base.<\/p>\n
The solution in theory seems simple: Provide these students with focused interventions to catch them up. But the reality is much more complex, educators and experts say.<\/p>\n
Teachers in later grades\u2014even those teaching in English\/language arts classrooms\u2014typically don\u2019t get a lot of training on foundational reading skills in their certification programs, and many available reading interventions are designed for young children rather than those on the cusp of adolescence.<\/p>\n
In a recent nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey, 38% of teachers, school leaders, and district leaders said they had not received any training in how to support middle and high school students who struggle with reading, and 26% of educators who had received training in the subject sought it out themselves. <\/p>\n
Thirty-eight percent of educators said they received training from their school, district, or state education agency, and just 20% reported receiving training in their teacher-preparation programs. <\/p>\n
The AIM course\u2014Pathways to Proficient Reading: Secondary\u2014is one of a small handful that are responding to the need for more help, and the Marietta district is trying to supercharge the process with an especially hands-on approach. <\/p>\n
In-person support bolsters an online training<\/h2>\n
The AIM course uses a tiered approach in which teachers learn how kids\u2019 brains learn to read and then practice specific skills and exercises they can implement in the classroom to help students learn those skills. The course covers a range of topics, from how to teach phonological awareness and morphology<\/a> to the reading-writing connection<\/a> and semantics. <\/p>\n Per the course design, most of the $750 per person training is asynchronous\u2014teachers can complete the modules at their own pace and in their own time. Educators must pass at the end of each section, and each session has activities teachers can use to test their skills, such as listening to a recording of a middle school student reading aloud and then deciding how to respond.<\/p>\n The training also includes six one-hour sessions in which participants gather, usually in person or live online, in groups of about 30 to discuss and practice the concepts together.<\/p>\n To this base, the Marietta district in Georgia has taken a unique approach to the AIM training. Rather than teachers doing the bulk of the lessons online, Marietta hired two staff members who conduct some in-person facilitation and work in the middle schools to help staff implement the concepts in their classrooms, said Mary Hannah Gaddis, the district\u2019s science of reading director, who also serves as the high school\u2019s facilitator.<\/p>\n Marietta\u2019s deputy superintendent said those investments are \u201ccritical\u201d to sustaining the work long-term. It allows staff members easy access to someone who can answer their questions and give advice, and hold them accountable, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe asynchronous approach is great for the delivery of content and building their content knowledge, but we feel that transfer to practice is really important,\u201d Gardner said. <\/p>\n The district isn\u2019t located in the same place as AIM\u2019s staff, and that limits interactions with the organization\u2019s staff, he said. \u201cThe reality is, when you\u2019re when you\u2019re purchasing a tool like that, you\u2019ve got to have somebody to monitor whether or not it\u2019s happening in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaddis and the two middle school facilitators had previous instruction on secondary literacy, working with adult learners, and instructional coaching, and completed the course the summer prior to other staff members beginning.<\/p>\n Marietta\u2019s teachers complete some of the training asynchronously, but if there is a particularly complex section\u2014like phonics\u2014the district sets aside time for the teachers to complete the session in person as a group.The facilitators will provide additional hands-on activities or classroom situations to practice, she said.<\/p>\n The extra work helps create \u201cmental Velcro on which teachers can attach new information,\u201d Gaddis said.<\/p>\n At least one state is trying to taking aim at the problem at scale. New Mexico has begun requiring all 6th through 12th-grade ELA, special education, literacy coaches, and English-language-development teachers statewide to complete the AIM training to build their knowledge in reading research and teach best practices for language and literacy instruction in secondary classrooms.<\/p>\n The 55-hour, 16-module training spans about eight months in total. It began statewide in 2024 and will continue to be rolled out in phases over the next three school years. While it is required for educators who conduct reading instruction, some districts have voluntarily added additional staff members to the training, like math or history teachers, said Carolyn Durante, senior relationship manager at the AIM Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever I talk to state leaders, I always say that the ultimate goal is that this is the type of work we won\u2019t need in 10 to 15 years. The hope is that we\u2019re going to be graduating kids from grades K-3 proficiently with the skills they need so we won\u2019t have to have so many kids who need to be caught up,\u201d Durante said. \u201cBut until then, there really has to be a focus here because we\u2019re letting too many kids fall through the cracks.\u201d<\/p>\n Windey McKelvie, an 11th and 12th grade English teacher at Cloudcroft High School in New Mexico, completed the course last year. She\u2019d received some training prior to entering the classroom about teaching reading to secondary students because her master\u2019s degree is in teaching English as a second language, which included topics like the etymology of words. But many of her colleagues had never received similar training, particularly those who had taken alternative pathways to receiving their teaching licenses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good to do as a district because it gives us all a common understanding of what we\u2019re doing and a common language to speak,\u201d McKelvie said. \u201cIt\u2019s also important because it bridges theory and practice. So, we have this theoretical concept of the study of the science behind reading, but then we\u2019re able to actually implement it and put it into practice.\u201d<\/p>\n For educators outside of states with expansive mandates who don\u2019t want to take the full 55-hour course but still want to learn some of the key, AIM also offers some modules a la carte. Districts can gauge areas in which there may be gaps in understanding or knowledge about literacy and hand-pick the modules they want their educators to take.<\/p>\n For content-area teachers, especially in those middle and upper grades, \u201cone of the challenges is there also isn\u2019t time in the day set aside anymore to teach reading,\u201d Durante said. \u201cThe math teacher doesn\u2019t need the 55-hour training, or even if they need it, they\u2019re not going to probably enjoy taking it. So here\u2019s a way to get at that in a more digestible way.\u201d<\/p>\n AIM also intentionally used examples and texts that are age appropriate\u2014historically a sticking point for districts that have taken early grades\u2019 training and tried to use it to train secondary teachers, AIM leaders said. Using recordings of middle and high school students reading, for example, has helped avoid teachers feeling \u201cturned off\u201d by a training that doesn\u2019t reflect what\u2019s actually in their classroom, Gaddis said.<\/p>\n It also acknowledges that elementary and secondary teachers are often trained in different ways, Gardner of the Marietta district added.<\/p>\n \u201cIt recognizes that elementary teachers tend to be more pedagogical experts, whereas secondary teachers tend to be trained as content experts,\u201d he said. \u201cThe way the modules are delivered seem to recognize that the approaches to instruction and the delivery of it will look different in middle school than it might in a 1st grade classroom, even if it\u2019s the same concept.\u201d<\/p>\n The investment seems to be paying off, Gaddis said.<\/p>\n Facilitators have noted when they complete classroom walkthroughs an increase in teachers\u2019 confidence addressing skill gaps, and the district has seen fluency gains among middle school students, particularly English learners, Gaddis said.<\/p>\n The key is ensuring that momentum continues, even years after teachers complete the training, she said.<\/p>\n Facilitators tend to \u201cfeel a heavy burden of making sure those teachers maintain the knowledge and continue implementing it in their classroom,\u201d said Gaddis. \u201cA teacher\u2019s job is so hard, and when there\u2019s not an intense focus on something, it\u2019s easy to let it get pushed to the back burner.\u201d <\/p>\n But when teachers are supported by someone who is circling back and reteaching things they\u2019ve learned, she said, ” we\u2019re driving it home long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many districts, the Marietta school district in Georgia has spent the past five years focused on improving literacy achievement for its youngest students, intent … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mssqlguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}One state is rolling out the training at scale<\/h2>\n
Attending to student learning means thinking about how adults learn, too<\/h2>\n