/ Effective Literacy Practices / Characteristics of Successful and Struggling Readers (Grades 6-12) (Word Study)
Characteristics of Successful and Struggling Readers
While seemingly effortless, good reading is made up of a set of complex skills and strategies. Successful readers actively and consciously coordinate these abilities before, during, and after reading a text.
Students in grades 4-12 begin to use reading as a tool for learning and may face growing challenges in tackling the complex informational text presented in content-area classrooms, which is very different from the texts students encountered in early elementary grades.
When older readers struggle with foundational reading skills, it is imperative teachers provide these struggling readers and at-risk students explicit and systematic instruction in phonics. See Interventions for effective strategies and practices to support struggling readers.
Successful Readers
- Read multisyllabic words and use strategies to figure out unknown words.
- Make connections between letter patterns and sounds and use this understanding to read words.
- Break unknown words into syllables during reading.
- Use word analysis strategies to break difficult or long words into meaningful parts such as inflectional endings, prefixes, suffixes, and roots.
Struggling Readers
- May read single-syllable words effortlessly but have difficulty decoding longer multisyllabic words.
- May lack knowledge of the ways In which sounds map to print.
- Have difficulty breaking words into syllables.
- Often do not use word analysis strategies to break words into syllables.
Source: Bhattacharya & Ehri, 2004; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006
Related
Find recommended instructional strategies and practices aligned with the science of reading by age/grade level and foundational literacy skill.
Evidence-based reading interventions support students who are identified as struggling with specific foundational literacy skills.
Evidence-based core curricula, interventions, and supplemental programs play a critical role in supporting students’ reading success.
Developmental benchmarks and literacy behaviors that most children display at a particular age/grade.