© 2025 Vista Higher Learning Vista’s Bridges: A Study of Reading Growth in MLs 3 One out of every ten students is classified as ML at some point during their K–12 schooling (U.S. Department of Education (DOE), 2018). Middle School Readers The reading research addressing the broader grade 6–8 population is instructive for understanding reading skills development for MLs. Reading proficiency in middle school hinges on a constellation of interrelated sub-skills—decoding (accurate word recognition), vocabulary depth, fluency, comprehension, and disciplinary literacy. Recent empirical work (2015–2025) paints a mixed picture, with continued support for the importance of foundational skills, but less convergence on how best to accelerate growth once students reach grades 6–8. Research shows that many middle schoolers continue to struggle with automatic decoding of multisyllabic words. Wang et al. (2019) found that weak decoding limits comprehension growth, creating a developmental bottleneck. Similarly, Daniel et al. (2022) reported that word-reading skill accounted for 39% of comprehension gains, with little progress among students below the decoding threshold—underscoring the need for explicit word-level instruction before higher-order interventions in grades 6–8. Vocabulary knowledge continues to expand rapidly in adolescence and predicts reading outcomes above decoding. Reed, Petscher, and Foorman’s (2016) study of 3,000 U.S. grades 6–10 students found that vocabulary accounted for 11% to 31% of the variance in comprehension, dwarfing spelling and decoding once threshold levels were met. Reed et al. cautioned that their design was correlational, tempering causal claims. Research shows that many middle schoolers continue to struggle with automatic decoding of multisyllabic words. A meta-analytic synthesis by Steinle, Stevens, and Vaughn (2021) aggregated 32 fluency experiments with struggling readers in grades 6–12. Strong effects were found for oralreading rate (g=0.46), but transfer to comprehension was small. Fewer than half of the studies (38%) used true control groups, a limitation the authors flagged. Conversely, a recent study (NWEA, 2023) reported large comprehension gains from a technologyassisted fluency protocol.
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