Balanced Literacy's Broken Promises

Middle schoolers are paying the price. It’s time to face the aftermath—and change the system.

Doc Holbrook practicing word reading with her daughter.

The Aftermath of Balanced Literacy

A recent report from The 74 Million revealed a troubling pattern: elementary reading scores are inching upward, but middle school scores are falling fast. This isn’t surprising—and it isn’t accidental. It’s the direct result of years of balanced literacy practices that left too many students without the foundational skills they need.

I see it in my own home and in my schools. My 7th grader admitted recently, “I didn’t read at all this summer.” That’s not because she doesn’t value books—when she was little, she fell asleep surrounded by them. It’s because reading has become work, not joy. And she’s not alone. Across the country, students who were never taught to decode systematically are now navigating the demands of middle and high school without the tools to succeed.

This is the aftermath of balanced literacy. And it demands our attention.

Spelling and Encoding

One of the clearest signs of this aftermath shows up in spelling. Many middle school students who missed systematic instruction in their early years still struggle to spell even high-frequency words like because, different, or friend.

Instead of breaking words into syllables or using knowledge of base words and affixes, these students often guess or avoid the word entirely. Many lean heavily on spell check or text-to-speech to get by. While these tools provide short-term support, they don’t build the underlying skill.

And the effects reach far beyond spelling tests. Struggles with encoding make writing laborious, forcing students to focus more on mechanics than meaning. Their ability to express ideas clearly in any subject is slowed down by the sheer effort it takes to get words on the page.

Decoding and Word Attack Skills

Decoding weaknesses are just as common. Students without a strong foundation often lack strategies for attacking unfamiliar words. Faced with multisyllabic words, they skip them, substitute them, or guess based on the first few letters.

One example illustrates the problem perfectly. A few years ago, when my phone displayed a contact saved as “Ryan Plow,” my younger 7th grade child glanced at it and read: “Who is Rain Pillow?”

That guess wasn’t random—it was the result of balanced literacy practices that encouraged students to “look at the first letters and guess.” And while “rain pillow” isn’t a bad approximation of “Ryan Plow,” this strategy quickly breaks down as texts grow more complex and vocabulary becomes less predictable.

Without explicit, systematic instruction in phonics and morphology, older students are left with gaps. Guessing and context clues may have carried them through early grades, but in middle school, technical vocabulary in science or social studies leaves no room for guessing. And when decoding breaks down, so does comprehension.

What Students Missed Out On

Balanced literacy didn’t just fail to equip students with decoding strategies—it also robbed them of precious time that should have been spent building knowledge.

Many students spent years practicing comprehension “skills” in isolation: finding the main idea, identifying the theme. And when that didn't work, school doubled down and pushed everything except math and reading to the side. Science and social studies took a backseat to finding the main idea. But comprehension doesn’t live in a vacuum. It depends on the knowledge you bring to the text.

The baseball study showed that struggling readers who knew a lot about baseball outperformed stronger readers who didn’t. Knowledge is power—it allows students to make sense of what they’re reading.

Middle and high school teachers feel this every day. Social studies teachers tell me, “The kids don’t know anything.” Instead of diving into complex topics, they spend valuable time backfilling knowledge that should have been built years earlier.

The result? Students arrive in secondary school without the decoding skills or background knowledge they need, and the gap widens.

What We Do Now

Schools can’t afford to ignore this. As Tim Shanahan warns in his blog, unless districts tackle the problem head-on, struggling readers won’t catch up. Too many middle and high school students are masking their difficulties, and too many secondary teachers were never trained to spot or address them.

The stakes could not be higher. Weak reading skills don’t just show up in ELA class—they shape the trajectory of a young person’s entire life. Research is clear: students who don’t learn to read proficiently by the time they reach adolescence are at dramatically higher risk of dropping out, entering the juvenile justice system, or becoming part of the school-to-prison pipeline.

Think about that. Something as fundamental as decoding words can determine whether a child grows into a confident, successful adult—or becomes another statistic. Reading is not just an academic skill. It is the gateway to every subject, every opportunity, and every future pathway. Without it, students are cut off from higher education, meaningful careers, civic participation, and the ability to fully contribute to their communities.

On the other hand, when schools commit to catching students up, the ripple effects are profound. Strong literacy skills open doors. They build confidence, allow students to access grade-level content, and prepare them to graduate ready for college, the workforce, and citizenship. Every student who learns to read well is more likely to become a successful adult—someone who contributes to society, supports their family, and participates in our democracy.

Because here is the truth: kids don’t age out of the right to learn to read. And when schools fail to provide that instruction, we are failing not just students, but our communities. Literacy is freedom. It is dignity. It is opportunity.

The aftermath of balanced literacy is staring us in the face—but the response is up to us.

See you next Sunday!

References

Shanahan, T. (2020, July 18). Older struggling readers: What can be done? Shanahan on Literacy. https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com

The 74 Million. (2024, August 12). Why middle school reading scores are dropping even as elementary scores rise. The 74. https://www.the74million.org

Recht, D. R., & Leslie, L. (1988). Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers’ memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 16–20. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.80.1.16

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf

Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101