Today's middle schoolers continue to struggle post-pandemic to read and write at the level needed to successfully navigate more complex academic content in the upper grades and beyond. Based on NWEA's research, current 8th graders would need close to a full academic year of additional instruction to catch up to their pre-pandemic peers in reading. This trend was reiterated in recent assessment results from the National Assessment on Educational Progress (NAEP), with only 30% of eighth-grade students performing at or above the NAEP proficient level.
While early literacy initiatives have garnered attention in recent years, the fact remains that many students struggle to read and are not prepared for the rigors of middle school. Students quickly find themselves challenged to keep up as they no longer receive explicit, structured reading instruction, even as they are expected to comprehend increasingly complex materials across subjects, like science, history, or English Language Arts.
The report offers four main recommendations:
- Use high-quality, grade-appropriate assessments that provide specific data on the literacy needs of middle schoolers.
- Look at flexible scheduling and policies that promote literacy development throughout the entire school day and help districts more effectively use instructional time.
- Understand and support the unique literacy needs of middle schoolers across subjects and disciplines from a systems perspective and invest in teacher professional learning in all disciplines, including at the upper grades, within state and district literacy plans.
- Curate relationships with external partners, like community organizations and nonprofits, who share similar goals in improving literacy outcomes, and can both support and reinforce literacy development, stretching beyond the school's hours and resources.
