It is hard to become automatic at something you do rarely. We know this in every domain of life. You don’t become fluent on the… Read More »Climbing the Staircase of Automaticity: Why Volume and Design Matter in Adolescent Reading
Too many reading interventions send adolescents back to the beginning—as if a thirteen- or seventeen-year-old were encountering print for the first time. But adolescent readers who score below Proficient are not at zero. When we begin where students actually are, we align practice with theory—and give adolescents the forward momentum they deserve.
What does NAEP Proficiency actually represent? Is it intended to describe what is developmentally appropriate for most eighth graders, or does it represent a more ambitious target? Ambitious goals are essential—they push systems forward. But when aspirational benchmarks are misread as diagnostic norms, high expectations become public condemnation.
While pundits paint dire pictures of 2024 NAEP results for 8th and 12th grades, the reality is more nuanced: many teens simply haven’t read enough… Read More »From Reluctant to Engaged: Open-Access Text Sets That Transform Adolescent Readers
This study examined how the lexical complexity of elementary reading textbooks has changed over six decades, finding that the issue is not declining rigor, but rather compressed progression.
At TextProject, we believe that literacy is the gateway to agency. But beyond the mechanics of reading lies the why: the stories that stay with us, the… Read More »Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Reviving Freddy’s Favorites
Even at the earliest stages, TextProject texts support knowledge acquisition as well as word recognition. Our resources, including those for beginning readers—BeginningReads and TopicReads-Primary— ensure students master decoding through meaningful content. Instead of repetitive nonsense, a TextProject text states: “A hat has a brim. A brim of a hat blocks the sun.”
By mapping the 2,000 most frequent words in English onto the d-ELP (Developmental English Lexicon Project) difficulty scale, we can create texts that repeat critical patterns while maintaining genuine meaning for young readers.
llenge is real: too many adolescents lack reading automaticity. They can decode words, but they don’t read fluently enough to lose themselves in a story or power through challenging text. This isn’t about ability—it’s about practice. And traditional fluency passages? Boring, disconnected, and utterly uninspiring.
When it comes to silent reading, volume matters. Even ten additional minutes for silent reading per day can shape whether students develop the automatic, flexible reading skills they need for lifelong learning.
