Summary
States can create more comprehensive support for adolescent readers through research-aligned curriculum, assessment, intervention, and professional learning.
The gap between striving adolescent readers and their peers keeps widening—and it’s a consistent trend across post-pandemic assessments (MAP Growth, i-Ready, and NAEP).
New NWEA data, drawn from more than 20 million K–8 students, tells the same story: reading test scores continued to decline between 2022 and 2025 for middle school students who were already behind, even as their peers’ scores stabilize.
Much of the policy momentum of the past decade has understandably focused on literacy in early grades. States such as Mississippi and Louisiana have demonstrated how sustained investment in evidence-based curriculum, professional learning, assessment, and implementation can help students become skilled readers and writers.
Early literacy efforts remain essential, but the new findings suggest that strong K-3 literacy policy alone is insufficient. To start: The science of reading and evidence-based literacy practices can’t stop in K–3. Rather, they should be a consistent foundation that follows students throughout elementary school and into middle school.
That means updating middle grade standards and materials to explicitly teach the advanced skills—like decoding multisyllabic words and morphology (understanding the structure of words, like prefixes and suffixes)—that students need to tackle increasingly complex texts as they get older.
Early literacy efforts remain essential, but the new findings suggest that strong K-3 literacy policy alone is insufficient.
Senior Vice President, Policy & Government Affairs at HMH
What might that look like in practice? Here are a few examples:
First, states can prioritize and promote research-aligned ELA curricula beyond elementary school that have been thoroughly vetted to reflect the science of reading, with additional supports for differentiation and intervention. Both Indiana and Ohio have raised curriculum quality and added key supports for students still needing additional support with reading in middle grades.
Second, states can implement diagnostic screenings that precisely pinpoint the needs of older striving readers. Several states are already beginning to put pieces of that approach in place:
Maryland’s draft literacy policy would extend literacy expectations into grades 4–12. Minnesota now requires statewide screening for advanced foundational literacy skills through grade 12.
Third, states can support teachers’ professional learning development. This means giving educators in all subjects—including history, math, and science—the training they need to help students build literacy skills aligned to the content of their subject area. Ultimately, turning policy ideas into real classroom impact will depend on how well we equip educators with the right tools necessary to implement change and support all learners. Michigan has heavily invested in curriculum guidance and aligned professional learning through grade 5 to support teachers in applying research-based science of reading practices.
While these policies are still emerging, they signal growing recognition that literacy support cannot stop at third grade.
The K–3 reading movement has already shown that sustained, system-level policy change can meaningfully improve outcomes for students. For state leaders, the lesson is to bring the same level of coherence and commitment to a different stage of reading development, with standards, assessments, materials, interventions, and educator support built around the unique needs of older students.
Key takeaways
- Middle grade students benefit from evidence-based literacy practices and curricula that explicitly address advanced skills, including multisyllabic word decoding and morphology.
- Professional learning can equip educators across subjects, including science, math, and history, to support adolescent literacy within their disciplines.
- States can build on lessons from K–3 literacy reform by creating greater alignment among standards, assessments, high-quality instructional materials, interventions, and educator support.
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