Fast, Effective Help for Middle Schoolers Missing the Basics
When Catherine Anderson became a middle school reading specialist in Austin, Texas, she was overwhelmed.
Her 7th and 8th-grade students were reading anywhere from a kindergarten to fifth-grade level.
Some had made it all the way to middle school without ever mastering basic phonics or decoding skills, let alone the ability to attack long words.
The students were defeated.
Catherine felt the weight of urgency.
She didn’t have years to fill in the gaps.
Her students were headed to high school!
And she didn’t have a program, scope and sequence, or ready-to-use materials.
Most days, it felt like she was trying to “build the boat while steering it at the same time.”
That all changed when she discovered Reading Simplified.
Watch Catherine share how Reading Simplified changed student outlooks and her own!
Or read on…
A Breakthrough With Reading Simplified
Instead of cobbling together lessons or focusing on the wrong needs for her students, Catherine suddenly had a clear, research-based pathway for teaching older struggling readers.
It was data from other schools that convinced her to take the leap.
With Reading Simplified, she found,
- Organized Materials for multiple reading level grade bands
- Engaging activities like Switch It and Sort It
- A Streamlined Pathway (scope and sequence) that removed the guesswork
The difference was immediate.
Within just one week, Catherine saw her students gaining confidence.
They stopped walking in saying, “I’m never gonna know how to read.”
And started asking, “What am I going to learn to read today, Miss?”
For Catherine, the relief was huge. She could finally focus on building relationships with her students instead of scrambling for resources.
And she was even able to go home on time!
Why This Matters
Catherine’s story highlights a reality many teachers face.
Middle and high school students who are still missing the basics.
Most secondary teachers aren’t trained to teach foundational phonics and decoding, and are told that students have other reading needs.
But that doesn’t mean the need for foundational skills goes away.
Without targeted help, students risk falling further behind in every subject.
The good news?
It’s not too late, with a simple, effective system that adapts to older students, even those who’ve struggled for years to catch up.
And in Catherine’s experience, it was faster than anyone thought possible!
And that quick progress isn’t an accident. It’s because Reading Simplified lays a strong foundation of sound-based decoding with activities that feel like games—but pack a serious punch.
Very quickly, students also begin to develop flexible strategies for tackling multisyllabic words—the kind of words that often trip up older struggling readers.
👉 Want a sneak peek at how that works? Check out this talk where Dr. Marnie Ginsberg shares practical tips:
Help Your Students Become Masters at Decoding Multisyllabic Words
Catherine’s students will enter high school more confident, more capable, and more hopeful about the future, because she had a system that worked in weeks, not years.
Progress like that is contagious!
Your Turn: Want to Learn the System Catherine Used?
If you’ve ever felt the same overwhelm that Catherine described, you’re not alone. And you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
That’s why we’ve created the Reading Simplified Academy.
Check it out and join us today!
