Five ways to support older struggling readers to catch up

By Alison McMurtrie
Community contribution / June 25, 2024

Supporting older primary school students struggling to progress in learning to read has long presented a conundrum for educators.

While early intervention is best – which is why literacy advocates support universal adoption of a phonics screening check in Year 1 – all is not lost when support starts later.

As state education departments progressively shift towards structured approaches to teaching early literacy – with Victoria being the latest to announce a shift towards evidence-based instruction – the proportion of students who require additional support to master this essential skill should, hopefully, decline over time.

The best insurance policy we, as educators, have against poor literacy outcomes is providing students with explicit instruction in the essential components of reading – phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension – in every early years classroom.

Systematic synthetic phonics, which, as the title suggests, systematically and explicitly teaches the alphabetic code in a set sequence, enabling students to blend sounds to read words, has been identified by the research literature as the most effective approach to teaching reading.

When students repeatedly decode words using letter-sound relationships, those words are committed to long-term memory through a process called orthographic mapping, which contributes to fluent reading.

However, there will always be a number of students who require additional support through an intervention program.

In 2023, almost one-quarter of Australia’s Year 5 students failed to reach proficiency in reading, according to NAPLAN. This is unacceptably high and reducing reading failure rates should be a priority for education policymakers and schools nationwide.

In cases where a child reaches the age of 10 or 11 and is struggling with reading, they have likely faced years of frustration and disappointment in their attempts to learn. Most of these children are acutely aware that they have fallen behind their classmates, which can harm their self-esteem.

While early intervention is best – which is why literacy advocates, including MultiLit, support universal adoption of a phonics screening check in Year 1 – all is not lost when support starts later.

Here are five ways to support older low-progress readers to catch up.

Initial assessment

There are multiple reasons why a child might be struggling with learning to read.

Standardised screening assessments, which can be administered by a classroom or learning support teacher, or by a psychologist or speech pathologist, will help pinpoint a student’s strengths and weaknesses and identify the best reading intervention.

For example, a child with poor word-level skills will often guess words based on the first couple of letters or from picture and meaning cues, reducing their fluency and comprehension. A phonics-based intervention is usually the most appropriate remedy in such cases.

However, another student might demonstrate good reading accuracy but then struggle to understand what they are reading, suggesting that a language-based intervention focusing on building vocabulary may be more appropriate.

Small group instruction is best

Studies have shown that low-progress readers in their final primary school years make little or no further progress in reading and related skills in a regular classroom setting.

However, significant gains are possible when students are provided with evidence-based intervention in a small group setting at a sufficient intensity to close the gap.

MultiLit’s MacqLit program is specifically aimed at struggling readers from Year 3 onwards, providing four one-hour lessons per week in groups no larger than five students.

Analysis of a cohort of approximately 300 students in Years 3 to 6 who received MacqLit small group instruction at school for two terms found substantial and statistically significant gains across a range of measures, including word reading accuracy, non-word reading accuracy, spelling accuracy, passage reading fluency, passage reading accuracy, and reading comprehension.

One of the biggest improvements was in students’ nonword reading ability, which is an indication of how well a reader can decode unfamiliar words.

At the start of the program, the average ‘reading age’ of the group was seven years and three months. By the end, it had risen to nine years and one month.

Work on comprehension alongside decoding

Reading comprehension – understanding the meaning and intent of a written text – typically requires knowledge (background knowledge, vocabulary, text structures) and skills (retrieving and connecting background knowledge and vocabulary, making inferences, understanding grammar and syntax).

Students who are poor comprehenders who have adequate word reading skills, will benefit from explicit instruction in the skills and strategies for reading with purpose.

These include vocabulary, grammar, inferencing, and text structure.

Practice, practice, practice

Low-progress readers should be provided with plenty of opportunity to practice reading.

Unfortunately, some of these students resist practice because their previous attempts to learn to read have left them feeling discouraged.

One-on-one ‘reinforced reading’ sessions supported by a teacher can assist the incidental development of students’ phonics skills using ‘pause, prompt, and praise’ strategies. This builds students' confidence and enjoyment of reading.

Students should also be exposed to a range of fiction and non-fiction texts to build fluency, background knowledge, and vocabulary (which will also support reading comprehension).

MultiLit’s new Firecracker series of books, which includes fiction and non-fiction titles spanning topics such as Ancient Egypt, volcanos, incredible inventions, and extreme sports, has been written with these students in mind.

Each book has been written with an understanding that students need to experience reading success while also feeling challenged.

And by reading non-fiction, not only will a student’s reading skills improve but their knowledge of the world will grow, and this will help them as the academic demands of school increase.