Roundtable: Leading for Literacy in Middle School

Fostering a love of reading and providing direct instruction helps lay the foundation for lifelong learning. To find out how middle school leaders promote a culture of literacy and organize supports for students who struggle with reading, Principal Leadership contacted Bethany Coughlin, the principal of North Cumberland Middle School in Cumberland, RI, and the 2024 Rhode Island Principal of the Year; Chad Soupir, the principal of Elkhorn Valley View Middle School in Elkhorn, NE, and the 2024 Nebraska Principal of the Year; and Matthew Strittmatter, the principal of Elizabeth Davis Middle School in Chester, VA, and the 2024 Virginia Principal of the Year.

Coughlin: Our goal is for all of our students to develop a love for reading and writing. In addition to focusing on building literacy skills in the classroom, we offer schoolwide activities to drive home the importance of reading. For example, sixth grade students are challenged to read at least one book per month of their choice in an identified genre, in addition to their curriculum-based novels. Each month the genre changes, ending with a genre of choice in June. This has been a big success, with classrooms competing against each other and students exploring a variety of genres they may not have chosen. Students submit a summary to their ELA teacher for each book read, which is then tracked in the ELA classroom. Students truly get into the competition, offer and receive recommendations from peers, and develop an overall sense of accomplishment, which is highlighted at our end of the year celebration. Our sixth grade teachers have spent the last few years perfecting this activity and we are in the process of expanding it to seventh and eighth grades beginning next year.

Another popular activity is our Word of the Week. On the first day of each week, students are introduced to a word and encouraged to use it in their speaking and writing to earn entrance into a weekly raffle. We’re really trying to build our students’ vocabulary schoolwide in an authentic manner. Students, teachers, and administrators all submit words for the week, and it is considered an honor to have your word chosen.

Strittmatter: This year, we have a reading specialist for the first time, which is a department of education requirement for all middle schools. In her first year in this role, she’s done a tremendous job bridging the community with the school building. Because ultimately, literacy starts at home. We’ve had a family literacy night here for the first time, and we hope that this event will continue to grow. We’ve even brought in guest speakers and athletes to try to engage some of our students who maybe don’t see the connection between college and professional athletics and reading.

Students who need additional support in core instruction (Tier 2) are scheduled into an ELA essentials class which is taught by a highly qualified ELA teacher. —Bethany Coughlin

We’ve also tried to go back to basics. We have had a huge push over the last decade or two with technology and the importance of getting Chromebooks in the hands of every student. We’re trying to get back to good old-fashioned reading of a book and writing on a piece of paper. And we’ve seen some exponential growth over the last year and a half, because we’re going back to collaboration and connection with the student and the teacher. So that means using pencils again. They’re using paper again. They’re using their binders again. And, while we do have Lexia as a resource on the computer, we do that with a connection to home. Students and parents can log into it at home outside of the school day so they can practice reading at home.

Soupir: My background is in math and science. In order to do well in all content areas, you need to read. Is reading happening at home? Not as much as I would like. How well are we doing it here? Well, we had started to go down the rabbit hole of using more technology to teach our children how to read better. We learned that nothing replaces direct instruction. We had a couple computer programs. Kids would sit down and play them and, as a matter fact, we ended up just showing them another game to play.

I’m in a district with five middle schools. I spearheaded a group of teachers who wanted to help improve reading. We’re in our third year of delivering a curriculum we created for students who need more support with reading. When they’re in a regular education classroom, they’re struggling to keep up and so we’ve put students with a reading teacher and a language arts teacher in a reading support class. As you can imagine, when we first launched it, adolescents viewed it negatively. Over time, students have begun to see the value of it. We took the standards and some priority standards that we thought all kids were struggling with and we built our curriculum around that. So, these kids have this class before they have their reading class. How do we fit that into an eight-period day? Instead of taking a foreign language and a study hall, these students are in this reading support class. They walk into class more confidently now, they’re able to understand the vocabulary, and they’re able to apply what they’ve learned. We run this districtwide and have it in all five middle schools.

Principal Leadership: What types of support do your schools offer struggling readers?

Coughlin: We track data very closely to ensure we are providing our students with the targeted support needed to grow to proficiency. This begins with screening students three times a year to determine foundational skills in reading comprehension. Additionally, we use on-demand benchmark writing tasks, also three times per year, to assess growth in grade level writing standards. This allows us to tier our students to provide targeted support in key skill areas. To ensure that scoring is accurate across classrooms, teachers are given a scoring day with their grade level colleagues. Essays are shared, scored collaboratively, and data is analyzed quickly so that instructional decisions can be made.

With accurate data, we can identify what support students need, individually and collectively. Students who need additional support in core instruction (Tier 2) are scheduled into an ELA essentials class, which is taught by a highly qualified ELA teacher. The class has its own curriculum (developed using historical data) and is assessed formatively to provide the teacher with valuable information relating to instructional moves. To ensure the skills they are learning in ELA essentials transfer to their core class, there’s a lot of conversation and collaboration between the Tier 2 essentials teacher and the core teacher. They work together to make sure the students are growing in both capacities. Tier 3 is a separate animal. It’s scripted, foundational-skills focused support to fill learning gaps through evidence-based intervention. For that, we use Lexia.

We had started to go down the rabbit hole of using more technology to teach our children how to read better. We learned that nothing replaces direct instruction. —Chad Soupir

Strittmatter: Like Chad and Beth said, you cannot replace Tier 1 direct instruction. To that end, building a master schedule that is conducive to common planning periods, and then getting the right kid in front of the right teacher at the right time is critical to the success of our Tier 2 students. For Tier 3 students, we engage them with intervention during an ungraded class period. This time during the school day is specifically designed for kids who need intervention based on data. To see which students need that class, we have meetings with our elementary schools to build that class into our master schedule for rising sixth graders and we analyze data for all of our rising seventh and eighth graders. They get that period at the beginning of the school day, which provides them with small group instruction in reading.

We also have two after school programs, both with money from the state of Virginia. One is an English, math, and homework help remediation group for one hour after school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Our district also purchased an online tutoring program that lets students sign up at the time that’s best for them and their families. We’ve got a lot of kids that jump onto tutoring sessions at 7 or 8 o’clock at night to build upon some of the interventions that are required. It’s a human tutor on the other end. And it takes out some of the barriers such as transportation.

Principal Leadership: Does your district offer professional development specifically for school leaders focused on the science of reading?

Coughlin: The Rhode Island Right to Read Act passed in 2019 states that all educators must show proficiency in, or an awareness of, the science of reading and local educational agencies must provide professional learning on it. I’m a math teacher, and I really didn’t know much about how students develop in literacy. Years ago, when we had PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), our writing scores and reading comprehension scores were marginal at best, suggesting that our students were not strong in their literacy skills.

In response, we piloted a new program to better support student achievement in writing. As a math teacher, I felt it was extremely important that I participate in the learning sessions with the teachers so I could really understand what this was all about. That allowed me to learn with the teachers and to truly understand the components of the program. Prioritizing what the teachers were learning and going through the process with them took a lot of time out of my day. But it was well worth the investment, because it then became our schoolwide focus. I was able to go into the classroom and understand what and why the teachers were doing what they were doing, and whether or not we were generating the desired outcomes. As a result, we were able to see huge gains in our accountability metrics and in our testing data.

Soupir: Sure, there are researchers who are great at literacy, and we can go out and access them. But really, the power comes from your teachers, right? They know what it takes to get kids to read. And so, like Beth, I just sat with them to listen and learn. Then once we found out what areas we needed to focus on we just dove in.

What I would have considered early elementary-based reading strategies are now being used in middle school, which is a very big change for many of our middle school teachers. —Matthew Strittmatter

Strittmatter: All middle school principals were required to sit in on a meeting in person this year at various locations in the state to learn about what the teachers got. The teacher training was module based. I agree with Chad; it’s about the teachers. I agree with Beth; it’s about learning and supporting teachers. But I think if we’re really going to make big moves in this state and this country, we’ve got to look at quality over quantity. We’re concerned about the school day and the time that kids are in classes, but we need to provide dedicated and consistent planning and learning opportunities for teachers. As a middle school principal who was an English teacher, I see that reading instruction today is way different. What I would have considered early elementary-based reading strategies are now being used in middle school, which is a very big change for many of our middle school teachers. I don’t know if we can make big moves without getting some designated time to have consistent, collaborative, and accountable professional development opportunities.