Many people assume that reading is often a skill learned by students in preschool or primary school. As a secondary teacher, I too believed this to be true and, as a result, I never thought that my role as a secondary teacher required me to teach reading. Moreover, I lacked the expertise to instruct students in how to read because it was not something that was part of my formal training as a teacher.
However, in my time as a secondary teacher, I’ve seen many students who struggle with reading. When these students were tested using a diagnostic reading assessment, it revealed that they were often reading below grade level. Sometimes, they were reading several grades below grade level.
Research cites that 'when students’ reading difficulties persist beyond primary school, the time and intensity needed to remediate these difficulties is challenging to manage in secondary schools' (Main et al., 2023, p. 89). This situation presents a dilemma for me as I am tasked with helping my students achieve proficiency in the curriculum skills designated for their grade, despite their reading abilities falling below the expected level for that grade.
Lacking extra time for supporting struggling readers, with limited external resources available both within and outside the school to bolster their reading abilities – and facing the responsibility of ensuring my students meet grade-level curriculum standards – I sought out strategies to implement within my classroom.
The strategies that proved effective included those that aimed to entice readers to read, thereby enhancing their reading confidence, as well as strategies that explicitly modelled the behaviours proficient readers engage in during the reading process.