Five Reasons to Include Literacy Education in Middle School Teachers' Professional Learning

Teachers often have too much to do and not enough time to accomplish it all. Their limited time is precious and needs to be spent on high-impact activities to make the biggest difference with their students.

High-quality professional learning is one such pursuit. The time teachers spend on professional learning that is thoughtfully constructed, effectively delivered, and targeted to their individual needs can pay dividends in terms of their success in the classroom. Although teachers of adolescent learners need professional learning that focuses on their core content area and successful teaching strategies, literacy education is also critical.

In fact, here are five key reasons why K–12 leaders should find time to provide teachers of adolescent students with actionable, high-quality professional learning around literacy instruction and the science of reading.

1. Literacy is a critical skill for success in school and life.

Students who struggle to read are less likely to understand increasingly complex texts as their education advances. This makes them less likely to succeed academically, and it puts them on a path toward fewer opportunities as adults. More than 40% of adults with the lowest literacy levels live in poverty, the nonprofit Lucy Project reports.

In contrast, students who read well go on to enjoy better health and overall quality of life. They become lifelong learners who can add skills and adapt nimbly to changing workforce conditions. They become more informed citizens who are better able to advocate for themselves and their communities in a democratic society.

2. Many students still struggle to read effectively beyond elementary school.

Many students still struggle to read even as they reach middle and high school. This was true long before COVID, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the problem.

In 2022, just 31% of eighth-grade students performed at or above the “Proficient” level on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card. That was three percentage points lower than the results in 2019, the previous assessment year. What’s more, 30% of eighth-grade students failed to reach even the “Basic” level on the reading exam in 2022, up from 27% in 2019.

If these students’ literacy skills aren’t addressed, they will continue to fall even further behind their peers.

3. Teachers of adolescent students often don’t get the training they need to teach literacy well.

Teachers of all kinds, from elementary reading specialists to high school science and social studies teachers, rely on their students’ literacy skills to convey content knowledge. However, not all teachers receive the same literacy education training—and teachers of older students rarely get such training at all.

Teaching literacy to adolescents is complex, and not all teachers have the proper background or resources to do this well. Understanding the science of reading is critical for educators to provide the best possible literacy support to their students, and this includes students in the middle grades who still struggle with their reading skills.

“With the exception of ‘reading specialists,’ ‘literacy coaches,’ and the like, secondary-school teachers receive little to no training on how to support struggling readers. That’s because educator prep programs and even administrators and teachers themselves have long believed there’s no need to teach older students to read,” former middle school teacher Colette Coleman writes for The Hechinger Report.

“Literacy instruction [typically] ends in third grade. ...This often leaves those who lack grade-level literacy skills unable to access content—or literacy help—so they drop further behind their on-grade-level reading peers.”

4. With the right training and support, teachers in all subjects can integrate literacy education that improves students’ reading skills.

Schoolwide professional learning that incorporates the science of reading into literacy instruction can help all teachers accelerate student literacy, regardless of their content area. This doesn’t mean all secondary teachers need to become literacy experts. Instead, subject-area teachers can collaborate with their ELA colleagues to provide targeted instruction that is rooted in the science of reading.

With the proper training and support, teachers of adolescent students can weave literacy skills and strategies into their instruction to help students learn how to read, comprehend, and articulate their ideas across various grade levels and subjects.

5. Professional learning in literacy education has been shown to make a big difference in adolescent students’ ability to read.

Training late elementary and middle school teachers in explicit reading instruction based on the science of reading has been shown to improve the reading abilities of adolescent learners. In one example, middle school teachers who received early literacy instruction taught phonological awareness to students who struggled to read. All of the participating students except one made significant gains in their literacy skills and their attitudes toward reading.

Improving student outcomes

Finding time to integrate literacy education into middle school teachers’ professional learning can be challenging. Lexia AspireTM Professional Learning makes this process easier.

Grounded in the science of reading, Lexia Aspire is a flexible, self-paced professional learning solution that empowers all educators to accelerate the literacy skills of students in grades 4–8. Because Aspire professional learning is delivered online in flexible, bite-sized chunks, teachers can experience it at their convenience, gaining the skills and strategies they need to support literacy in a way that fits into their busy schedules. These online modules can also be revisited as many times as needed to support teachers’ ongoing development.

A teacher who’s skilled in applying science of reading principles can create a more equitable learning environment by fostering literacy for every student. Providing high-quality, personalized professional learning to teachers of adolescents gives them the knowledge they need to do this successfully—while significantly improving student outcomes.