The Problem: Decoding the NAEP Scores For High Schools

NAEP’s long-term trend assessments have been conducted since the early 1970s. Unlike the main NAEP assessments, administered to students in grades 4, 8, and 12, the LTT looks at various indicators for 13-year-olds. The most recent assessment found other reasons to be concerned.

Detailed Analysis of the Recent NAEP Scores

The 2023 LTT results show that 13-year-olds are struggling academically amid achievement declines that worsened during the pandemic on the main NAEP assessments. Lower-performing students saw more significant declines than their higher-performing peers, as they did on other recent NAEP assessments. Today, the average score for 13-year-olds on the LTT reading assessment is about where it was in 1971.

Unlike in other years, scores decreased significantly among students of all percentile levels, races, and economic levels. The declines in reading ranged from 3 to 4 percentage points for middle- and higher-performing students to 6 to 7 points for lower-performing students.

The Solution Part 1: Implementing the Science of Reading

The science of reading is a comprehensive body of research that explores how we learn to read and the best practices for teaching reading. It’s not a curriculum or a program but rather a collection of evidence-based insights that can inform reading instruction. The science of reading encompasses a wide range of areas, including phonics (the relationship between letters and sounds), phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words), fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. 

The science of reading is particularly relevant for high school educators as it offers a roadmap for effective reading instruction that can help students at all reading levels improve their skills. It provides a framework that can guide instruction and intervention, helping educators tailor their teaching to meet the diverse needs of their students. High school teachers can help a broad swath of their student population build fluency across various content areas by improving decoding skills and language comprehension. 

Strategies for Implementing Science of Reading in the High School Classroom

Generally, high school educators can start by incorporating instructional strategies that work across multiple disciplines, not just in English and reading classrooms where we typically find them. Because high school students are likely to engage with longer, more complicated texts with higher-tiered vocabulary, strong decoding skills are essential for building student comprehension.

For example, teachers across all disciplines can enhance student reading skills by incorporating activities focused on phonological awareness, which involves manipulating sounds and syllables in spoken words. This strategy helps students better understand what word parts look like and how they sound. In addition to memorizing definitions, teachers can guide students to identify parts of words, such as prefixes, suffixes, and word roots, especially when working with higher-tier vocabulary terms. This approach strengthens decoding skills, builds comprehension, and boosts fluency skills.

Supporting High School Students Through Targeted Reading Instruction

All high school students can benefit from targeted reading instruction. Educators should consider strategies for students reading below proficiency levels that focus on filling in the gaps in basic phonics skills. It’s also important to provide students with plenty of opportunities to practice reading in a supportive, low-stress environment, no matter what level they are performing at.

Here is a summary of some explicit strategies, examples, and exercises for targeted reading instruction:

• Adopting Graduated Reading Levels: One effective strategy is to use texts of varying complexity tailored to your students’ reading levels. Start with a text that your students can read with a very high degree of accuracy. This allows them to focus on understanding the main ideas without being overwhelmed by complex language. Once they’ve mastered this, gradually introduce more challenging texts. This approach helps students build confidence and improve their reading skills in a supportive, structured environment.

• Explicit Instruction for Specific Literacy Skills: Explicit instruction is a teaching method that breaks down learning into manageable chunks with regular checks for understanding. This could involve the teacher modeling a specific reading skill, such as comprehension strategies, and then gradually reducing their guidance as students practice the skill. For example, a teacher might demonstrate how to use a graphic organizer to map out a text’s main ideas and supporting details. Students then practice this skill in pairs before eventually applying it independently to a new text. It mirrors the gradual release model—I do, We do, You do.

• Enhancing Inference-Making Skills: Inference-making is critical for reading comprehension, especially as students get older and interact with more comprehensive texts. It involves going beyond the literal words on the page to understand deeper meanings and connections. For instance, if a text describes a character looking out at a dark, threatening sky and grabbing an umbrella, students should be able to infer that it’s likely to rain. To develop this skill, teachers can use real-world events or relevant topics. For example, students could read multiple articles about a current event from different perspectives. The teacher could then ask them to make inferences about the motivations of the people involved or the potential outcomes of the event.

These strategies can be particularly helpful for students reading below grade level to improve their literacy skills and gain confidence in their reading abilities. It’s important to remember that every student can make progress with the right support and resources.

Supporting High School Students By Enhancing Reading Instruction

When looking to enhance reading instruction, educators and schools can focus on improving fluency, which includes rate, accuracy, prosody (patterns and rhythms; expressions in reading), and expression in a multitude of ways. One effective strategy is repeated readings, where students read the same text multiple times to improve their fluency.

A simple approach is having small groups of students continuously reading aloud with each other. Schools can also provide these students with challenging texts that push them to apply their reading skills in new contexts and incorporate reciprocal models so students are constantly collaborating and learning with one another.

Below are a series of examples and activities to consider enhancing your instruction, all of which can be incorporated into project-based and place-based learning activities, both of which can contribute to meaningful, engaged learning—one of the six research-based XQ Design Principles for successful high schools. Just be sure to understand the needs of your students when identifying how to scaffold and differentiate appropriately.

• Direct, Explicit Instruction: This involves teaching specific reading strategies in a systematic way. For example, you might teach students about Latin prefixes, such as “ante-” or “contra-” and how those alter the form of words. This kind of explicit instruction can help students understand language rules, making reading and spelling easier.

• Writing Practice: It’s crucial to remember that students’ writing skills may not always align with their reading abilities. Even if students are proficient in reading, they might struggle with expressing their thoughts in writing. Teachers can integrate writing exercises that complement their reading instruction to address this. For instance, in a lesson, teachers could introduce rhetorical devices such as alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds). After explaining these concepts, teachers could engage students in a writing activity where they create their own sentences or short paragraphs using alliteration and assonance. This activity enhances students’ understanding of these rhetorical devices and helps them develop a more nuanced appreciation of language and its potential for creative expression. Exercises like this can help students improve their writing skills while also reinforcing their reading comprehension.

• Cognitive Strategies: Teaching students cognitive strategies can also enhance their reading skills. These strategies, which can strengthen comprehension and fluency, are for educators across all disciplines. They include: activating prior knowledge, inferring, monitoring and clarifying understanding, questioning, searching and selecting relevant information, summarizing, visualizing, and organizing information. Each of these strategies can be taught explicitly and practiced in the classroom.

• Multi-Sensory Learning Activities: Engaging multiple senses during learning can enhance students’ understanding and retention of literacy skills. Multi-sensory learning involves using visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile senses to teach and reinforce concepts. For instance, when teaching a new phonics pattern, teachers could incorporate visual aids or cues in their auditory exercises, like repeating sounds, and kinesthetic activities, like tracing letters or words.
  
  Teachers could incorporate games involving these senses for a more interactive experience. For example, a game could include students drawing flashcards with words that follow a specific phonics pattern. Students would then say the word aloud, trace it in the air, and write a sentence using it. This multi-sensory approach not only makes learning more engaging but also reinforces the phonics pattern across different contexts, enhancing students’ reading, speaking, and writing skills.

Remember, the goal is continually challenging and engaging students, helping them become more proficient and confident readers.

By implementing these science of reading-focused strategies, high schools can provide effective, evidence-based reading instruction that helps all students improve their reading skills, regardless of their current proficiency level. These strategies can help address the issues highlighted by the NAEP data and ensure that all students have the reading skills necessary to succeed in high school, college, career, and beyond.