Helping High Schoolers Decode Their Future
Over the years, Taylor had learned how to disguise his reading challenges. The junior relied on a combination of memorizing words that were reviewed in class — like comrade and rebellion — and guessing at others based on the sounds he recognized in them, such as historical, knowing the “his” and “cal” sounds. Unfortunately, my teacher preparation program had not taught me how to support high school students with targeted literacy instruction to build skills they still lacked. It only focused on content knowledge and how to teach it, not decoding, vocabulary development, or comprehension strategies. I cared deeply about Taylor, but I felt like I was failing him.
That changed when I began teaching at a K-8 school. Almost immediately, I was surrounded by structured support for reading instruction. I observed kindergarten teachers explicitly teaching letter-sounds relationships. I attended professional learning sessions on evidence-based reading instruction, including literacy strategies to support students with dyslexia.
With that training, I was able to help my 8th grade student, Scott, when he struggled with multi-syllabic words like oratorical and disobedience. Instead of asking him to guess or memorize, I taught him how to break down words into meaningful parts – prefixes, roots, and suffixes – so he could decode, understand, and apply them across subjects. Scott gained confidence not just in my English class, but in my colleagues’ science and social studies courses, as well.
Taylor deserved the same. While Pennsylvania has invested in funding to ensure elementary and even middle school teachers are steeped in the science of reading, high school educators haven’t been included. Test scores show that they must be, as less than 50% of students headed to high school passed the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment reading test last spring. We are sending our students to 9th grade woefully unprepared for the literacy challenges that lie ahead of them. What if my teaching courses in college had provided me with that knowledge? What if my various district employers had offered that training when I was a high school teacher?
All teachers responsible for reading and writing instruction at any grade level should have formal education and training in the science of reading, research, and structured literacy strategies. Here are ways to get closer to that goal:
Two of the biggest hurdles for students are a strong vocabulary and understanding the deeper meaning of what they read. Those only get more difficult as students get closer to high school graduation, as students move through courses that present them with more specialized knowledge, like physics or advanced history. To help students catch up on skills they missed in earlier grades, high school teachers can show them how to break down complex words into their roots and prefixes. If I had known this information when I was teaching Taylor, he’d have had the tools to navigate any textbook. Learning to read is about much more than just sounding out letters; it's about understanding how language works.
High school teachers would also benefit from literacy coaches just like me. In my current role, I use my specialized knowledge in structured literacy strategies to provide day-to-day, real-time support to teachers. I collaborate with educators teaching elementary and middle school grades, providing them with ways to best meet the reading and writing needs of their students so that they can tackle grade-level material across their classes. For example, I recently analyzed assessment data with a 1st grade teacher and determined a trend in spelling errors. Instead of relying on rote memorization, I was able to introduce the teacher and students to sound walls to reinforce spelling patterns and build the foundation for students to read and write new words on their own.
So, what if? What if Pennsylvania committed to equipping high school teachers with the tools to address student reading gaps? What if we could guarantee that Scott would continue to receive research-based, explicit reading instruction in high school? The future of Pennsylvania depends on teachers empowered with the expertise to help all students. After all, that future depends on today’s competent readers becoming tomorrow’s leaders.
