Middle School Intervention That Works—Setting Students Up for Success This School Year

Middle school is a pivotal moment in a student’s literacy journey—yet it’s also the stage where unfinished learning can hide in plain sight. During this episode of EDVIEW360, we sit down with veteran educator and author Jeanne Schopf for a powerful conversation about what it truly takes to support struggling readers in grades 6–8.

With decades of experience helping middle school students rebuild foundational skills, Schopf brings a refreshingly honest and deeply practical perspective. She shares why intervention at this age is both urgent and entirely possible, how teachers can create momentum from day one, and what she’s learned about meeting adolescents where they are—academically, socially, and emotionally.

Listeners will learn:

• Why middle school readers often mask their struggles—and how to spot the signs early
• How to build intervention routines that respect adolescent learners
• What successful literacy support looks like in the first weeks of school
• How to create a culture where students feel safe taking risks and rebuilding skills
• Practical strategies educators can use immediately to set students up for a strong year

As educators head into a new school year, Schopf offers encouragement, clarity, and actionable steps for teachers determined to make a difference. Whether you’re a reading specialist, interventionist, or classroom teacher, this episode will equip you with the insight and inspiration you need to help every middle school reader move forward with confidence.

Tune in—and start the year ready to change lives.

Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to EDVIEW360. 

Jeanne Schopf: 

Teachers, literacy is everyone‘s responsibility. It‘s not just the English language arts teacher, it‘s not just the reading specialist, it‘s not just the reading interventionist, it‘s not just the special education teacher. It is going to take all of us coming together and improving our instruction, talking about the data, and shifting our practices in order to close those reading gaps. Because, friends, we can do this. We can change kids‘ lives if we just really keep literacy and instruction at the forefront. And we just have to make sure that we just keep growing.

Narrator:

You just heard from literacy expert Jeanne Schopf. Jeanne is our guest today on the EDVIEW360 Podcast.

Pam Austin: 

Today on EDVIEW360, we are honored to welcome Jeanne Schopf, a nationally respected literacy expert, speaker, and consultant with more than 35 years of experience helping educators transform outcomes for struggling students. Jeanne has served as an elementary and middle school teacher, literacy coach, reading specialist, and certified dyslexia interventionist. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher. Jeanne is the editor and contributing author of Reading Isn‘t Optional: Fulfilling the Promise of Literacy for Secondary Students. And she‘s the founder of Pathways Toward Literacy, where she partners with schools and districts to implement evidence-based practices grounded in MTSS [Multi-Tiered System of Supports] and the science of reading. Her work centers on building educator capacity, strengthening intervention systems, and ensuring that every student, especially adolescents, can become a competent, capable reader. Well, today she joins us to talk about middle school intervention, middle school intervention that works and why this age group is so often overlooked, and how educators can set students up for success as we begin a new school year. Oh, Jeanne, welcome.

JS:

Thank you. It is such an incredible honor to be here with you today. As you said, I listen to your podcasts. I‘m a regular. I enjoy all your guests. I always learn something new. And it‘s just an honor to be here today.

PA:

Yeah, it‘s always a good day to learn something new. We like to say that, especially at VSL. Well, you know what, Jeanne? Let‘s go ahead and get started. So, let‘s start with your story. What first drew you into this work of literacy? And when did you realize that it would become your life‘s passion?

JS:

Oh, well, first of all, I‘m in a family of educators. My dad was a teacher and became a principal. My sister went into education. She was a secondary English teacher. So, when it came time for me to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, my dad just encouraged me to go into education. And I said, “OK, dad.” Because you know you listen to your dad. And immediately I got my first job working as a sixth grade teacher. And I taught reading and writing and all the content areas. And I was not trained in Structured Literacy. I had no idea about the science of reading, the science of learning, any of these sciences. So, I kind of globbed on to reading and writing workshop, whole language. And I loved it. I love literature. I love getting kids talking about books. I loved reading out loud. I loved everything about literature and text. And then when I got the chance to move down into third grade, I started learning a little bit about phonics at that time because our school was a reading first school. But I was on the end of the grant. So, I just got a little bit of information about, “Oh, it was a dip thong and a digraph.” And I still really didn‘t know what any of that meant, honestly. And I had been teaching already, I would say, 16 years. And then in the next year in third grade, I had the opportunity to have my own daughter as a third-grader in my classroom. I got to teach her. And I‘ll never forget when the leaders in my building asked me to go down to a student consultation room. And I sat at the table and they started talking about the students‘ scores, particularly the DIBELS® score and how the student was at risk for reading disabilities and suggested that perhaps we move a student toward a pathway of a referral. And that student was my own daughter. And so, it‘s really hard listening on the other side of the table of that because I thought I knew everything about reading because I had my Master‘s degree in reading. I was a reading specialist. And of course I knew, but I also knew how bright she was and strong oral language. And I thought, “No, I don‘t think she‘s a candidate for a reading disability.” And I refused that. But I had this little whisper in my head that perhaps she had something called dyslexia. And I really wasn‘t sure at that time what it meant, what dyslexia meant. There wasn‘t this thing social media and it wasn‘t just so available to me to just know when I still believed in what I knew to be true. And then the following year, I went up to the middle school and I had all of these students that had inability to access grade-level text. And I had a special ed director ask me if I would take a course in Structured Literacy and work with the kids that had identified as dyslexia. And I said yes. And it was at that time, that precipice, where I realized the social and emotional trauma of all of these children that have been left behind. And that are capable readers because I taught them to read. They were perfectly capable readers, but they were never given the right instruction to the right intensity, to the right amount of time, to what their reading brains needed to be successful. It was really at that moment that I just became on this journey, right? This journey of supporting our kids in middle and high school that have been left behind, that have been traumatized and hold the weight to the shame of not being able to read. And my own daughter hung on to that for many years, that she just was dumb, even though she graduated from high school, went to college, all those things, she still feels that, right? There‘s always that little internal narrative that I‘m not as good as everybody else.

PA:

Well, you know what? School is the first place that you go to have success. And when you‘re not successful and you look around and you see everyone else appears to be successful, we can understand where that emotional trauma comes from. Thank you for sharing your story. I mean, from your love of literature and then your understanding and sharing that sixth grade to third grade and looking at students with different issues. We each have a journey, don‘t we?

JS:

Oh, we all have a journey in this thing called life, right? And for some of us who are really passionate about this work and getting it right, they tend to have a personal story about a family member that reading didn‘t come easily to them. And I had that. I had two neurodiverse children, and that‘s really been … they‘re my why. And the kids that I worked with in the middle school, they‘re why I show up every day.

PA:

And you said middle school and you worked in various levels, but middle school seems to be just a special place for you. So, tell me a little bit about these adolescent students here that keeps you committed to work that actually really helps you target on helping these students at this age.

JS:

Well, I think about that, and I think about why adolescents like why they keep me committed and why they hold a special place in my heart. Because being an elementary teacher, OK, in that elementary, there‘s this safe haven, this sense of community that is developed in that third grade and that fourth grade and that fifth grade classroom. I taught all subject areas. So, I did not switch classrooms, particularly one classroom we switched. So, I had my students all day long and we developed this safe community. And for students who struggled, even though we didn‘t know why they were struggling, there were scaffolding and supports to help them along the way. That‘s what happened to my own daughter, right? She was struggling in third grade, and then fourth grade, fifth grade, she had these great teachers that just built her up, where she just started to bloom. She really did. And then what happens when we get into that middle school, it‘s this, I don‘t know, it‘s this bias or this understanding that, “OK, these are big kids now and they need to fend for themselves.” And this is where kids are sorted. Like I think about Harry Potter and the sorting hat, right? When they go to Hogwarts school, they get the sorting hat. Like kids are sorted then in middle school, right? The athletes, the academics, they‘re all kind of sorted. And these kids who have this unfinished learning, they start to see themselves in a different way than they ever saw themselves in elementary school. There was less community because kids go from class to class. They have a mixture of kids in their classes, and they really start to struggle, right? They struggle personally, they struggle socially, they struggle mentally, all really a lot of it rooted in the fact that they have so much unfinished learning. And I think for my own kids, that‘s kind of where it all happens for a lot of kids, where they really start to struggle with depression and anxiety and behavior gets worse because of that environment. And so, that‘s why that environment is so critical to me, because these are still children and they should be taught to read and write well, regardless if they‘re in middle school and high school.

PA:

Science doesn‘t matter. Age doesn‘t matter. It‘s that term you kept using, Jeanne, the unfinished learning. We have to make sure that we give them opportunities to learn. Kids are struggling, and probably at that age, they‘re not exactly telling it to the world, are they?

JS:

No. No. I mean, I think about that, and I think there‘s like a song or something where Taylor Swift says the only time it‘s cool to be like everybody else is in seventh grade. And this is where you just want to blend in, right? You just want to blend. You don‘t want to stand out in any kind of way. And that‘s what makes it hard because the kids who have these buried feelings of lack and shame. It just gets buried deeper and deeper when boys start acting out and girls just become internalized and anxious and depressed and start doing self-harming behaviors. And I saw that with my students.

PA:

So, they wear these masks, they cover it up. What are some of the early signs that maybe teachers should look for that this student really is struggling? That you can tell in some small way they‘ve got that unfinished learning. And what do we look for for those students?

JS:

Those are the kids, right? They‘re the great compensators, OK? The great compensators. So, they blend in and they just hide in the shadows, or they don‘t have a problem sharing. But I think for teachers to really kind of understand their students at the beginning of the year and to see where they‘re at. Now, I want to say the best thing that teachers can do is know their students. Know their students first and foremost, give them a survey at the beginning of the year, find out their likes and their dislikes and their challenges and how to best serve them and teach them. Find out who they work well with in their classrooms, who they don‘t work well with. Because if you put kids in a partner situation with kids they don‘t work well with, it‘s not going to go anywhere. And those are things that I did. Of course, get into the data, right? Find out which kids in your classroom have consistently scored below benchmark on the state test. You can start there. You can start with which kids struggle with absenteeism, which kids struggle with behavior. Those are all those early warning signs, right? Those systems that have in place. And then really what we can do, Pam, at the beginning of the year is really ask the kids to write. Give them a simple writing prompt at the beginning of the year. Tell me about your best part of your summer. Tell me about what you love doing. And you have to write our middle school kids, you‘re gonna have to say, “I need you to write seven sentences.” Because for some of our kids, they‘re gonna just write two pages, or some of them will write one sentence. And so, like this is because we have to give them grades right in the middle school. This is your first participation points of the year, right? Write a paragraph about, tell me a little bit about yourself, your family, what you do, and then really look into the spelling. And that was one thing that showed up for my own daughter. She did really well in middle school. Like she scored advanced proficient on the state test and all the screening tests. Like she compensated so well. But what started to come up, right, was her spelling. And so, when she was in eighth grade, she couldn‘t get an A because of her spelling. Now, I still was not aware enough of the reading brain and the science of reading to say that is a sign because she was still compensating so well. But if we really look at kids‘ spelling and their sentence construction, that can be a red flag about there‘s unfinished learning, unfinished learning that we can address.

PA:

Right. And teaching those patterns directly. This is what it sounds like to me. Those first few days of school, it‘s all about starting community, getting to know the kids, then also looking into the data, taking a look at what kids, which one of those students may have a little bit of trouble and how we can hone in on helping that support. I love that holistic approach there. And I was going to ask you, besides those signs, what can middle school teachers, those kids that are in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, what can those teachers do to actually provide some intervention? What would be effective for them?

JS:

That‘s a big question, Pam, right? Because as a classroom teacher in the middle school, I haven‘t been trained in literacy. So, I‘ve been trained in my standards, I‘ve been trained, trained in English literature or science content, social studies content, math content. And so, I think the first thing that has to happen is we have to have a belief that all children that are in secondary classrooms can become reasonably successful readers. And just because they arrive at your doorstep with unfinished learning doesn‘t mean we can‘t teach it.

Voyager Sopris Learning:

Voyager Sopris Learning is the reading, writing, and math intervention specialist. With four decades of results, we provide evidence-based interventions and assessments that help educators ensure academic success for all students. Learn more at voyagersopris.com.

JS:

So, to me, I feel like it always starts with that belief system because I can be really clear on my standards. I can be really clear on my content. I can have my success criteria and my learning targets and my formative assessment, and I really know what I‘m gonna teach and I know where I‘m gonna go for this day to this week to this month to this semester. But if I don‘t believe that all of my children in my classroom can become reasonably successful readers and writers, then my belief is gonna override my instruction. 

PA:

Yes.

JS:

And my instruction will become watered down for the kids that I believe can‘t do it. And my expectations are gonna be lowered for the kids that I believe can‘t do it. Rather than holding the bar here and saying, “No, you can do it, and this is how I‘m gonna help you get there.”

PA:

Right. I love it. I believe it. Because if you believe, then they believe. All in there together. You know what? I‘ve always had in my mind as an educator myself, when you first get into the school at the beginning of the year, besides creating that community, it‘s all about routines and procedures, routines and structures, some things that we can put in place that we can go to automatically that can be a support for those struggling students. We do want to raise the bar, we want to pull them up, but what are some things that would be very helpful? And maybe something that‘s easy for teachers to jump right into that will help support their students.

JS:

Oh, well, I think it‘s understanding that I mean, a teacher in the classroom to me, I mean, it is the greatest lever of change for a child‘s life. And I have to know that and I love the teaching that Anita Archer has taught us in all of these years, right? It‘s beginning with instruction and understanding how well I taught my students will equal how much they learn. And how much they learn does equal how well I taught them. And I have to know that I have to understand the qualities of strong instruction, and it‘s not discovery, it‘s not lecture. It‘s explicit, systematic instruction. And it begins really with explicit instruction, which starting down right with the elements of planning, planning my instruction, right? Like, first of all, I have to know what is my critical content? What is it that my students have to know and be able to do as the result of my instruction at the end of class? And I have to have that really super clear success criteria, my super clearest learning target. And at the end of class, this is what my students should be able to do as a result of how well I taught them. And at the end of the class, and it should always be speaking, writing, listening, reading, writing, speaking, and listening every day in every class. And if my students do not meet my success criteria, I have to deflect the blame off the children. It‘s not because they weren‘t attentive. It‘s not because they weren‘t engaged. It‘s not because they didn‘t try. It‘s because I did not teach them well enough and I did not give them the scaffolding that they needed in order to be successful. It rests on me, right?

PA:

Because there‘s something more that maybe you could have done, added an extra layer. I love it. Have a plan, how to execute that plan with speaking, listening, lots of noise in that classroom, but around literacy, right? And then the criteria at the end. I just love it. That seems like something that teachers can dive right into to help support all their students.

JS:

Because you add on to that, Pam, because many kids float through the day and they don‘t know why they‘re learning what they‘re learning. They‘re just moving through the day. And so, it‘s really critical for us to set that expectation at the beginning. This is what we‘re doing and this is why we‘re doing it, and this is how it‘s going to help you. And so, once they understand that, right, they‘re going to be a little bit more, they‘re going to be leaning into you a little bit more in your instruction. And then we have to design our instruction, right? With the I do, we do, you do, with lots of repeated and interweaved practice. And we have to have delivery, strong delivery skills, right? Where we‘re eliciting responses. We‘re monitoring their responses. We‘re providing feedback. We know Hattie‘s effect size for feedback is really high. And then we got to have that really strong pacing. So, all those parts and pieces of explicit instruction are critical in that core instruction that I‘m talking about, particularly.

PA:

Which is great. And at the end of the day, if they‘re meeting that criteria because you‘re getting that feedback from your students, then you‘re building that confidence. And it snowballs, building confidence, building success, and it continues. Thank you so much for sharing that. So, we‘re talking about creating a community and also creating that culture. And I‘m thinking about students, building that confidence. What would be the result of building confidence in students? What are they going to see in the end, Jeanne?

JS:

Well, I can think of a couple students that I had the privilege of working with in an intervention system in my middle school. One of them was a sixth-grader that came to me as a first grade reader. And I had the opportunity because I had a system in place in my school that I could work with students every day for 45 minutes. I had evidence-based intervention and I was highly trained that I could work with that student every day in middle school for three years. And he graduated from high school and he is now in college.

PA:

It‘s a beautiful example of a classroom experience. How can that be expanded if we think about schoolwide? How can schools better support teachers serving these older struggling students?

JS:

Well, everything rises and falls on leadership. So, our building leaders that haven‘t necessarily been trained in Structured Literacy have to know that really when we get literacy right, we get everything right. And we have to reduce our number of competing initiatives. And we have to ensure that literacy is at the top, particularly if we do not have 80 percent of our students at grade level and every single grade, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, right? And we have to know, our leaders have to know that we can get it right. These kids can learn to read reasonably well if we give them the right instruction, which means our building leaders then need to give teachers a schedule in which they have enough time to teach their core instruction as well as giving the system of support, right? Where our kids who have unfinished learning are getting that targeted intervention every day. And the kids that have our IEPs are getting an extra dose of intervention every day, not just homework help, right? So, our leaders have to shift our systems in place and give us that professional learning and give us our coaching that we need to support us. So, once that happens, we have a system in place where that‘s the first step is creating the systems and the leaders leading it.

PA:

Right. Sounds like a holistic approach to support teachers so that they can support the students. Absolutely love that. Thank you for sharing that. When we think about implementing these systems and we think about that relationship within a school community, teacher to student, what gives you hope right now when you look at the future of adolescent literacy?

JS:

Well, one thing that gives me hope is there‘s a greater conversation around adolescent literacy today than there has been in many years. And talking to Louisa Moats, she wrote a white paper 25 years ago, right? Why older readers can‘t read. Twenty-five years ago. And we‘ve had incredible people doing this work, but now people are talking about it, right? In a greater space, on podcasts, in webinars, all over the conversation is around adolescent literacy and the awareness about what‘s happening to our students and what we can do about it. So, that gives me great hope. And also, what gives me great hope is there‘s a lot more training out there that‘s going to help teachers improve their instruction in their classrooms and improve their systems. There‘s a lot more information for teachers, more readily available than was 20 years ago. Like when my daughter was like, “I think she has something called dyslexia,” and I wasn‘t exactly sure. We had DIBELS, we had the assessment. I didn‘t know what that meant. I had no idea what her number meant to the reading brain. I still thought she just needed more time. So, there‘s just greater awareness and more information and greater urgency around getting that right for kids.

PA:

Well, definitely it will lead to action, right? I just love the fact that we focus on how we can get teachers to improve their instruction. And I always think about it in this way to improve your craft as a teacher. I‘m instructing. Instruction is a craft. It‘s something that we do. It‘s something that we develop over time. So, I really appreciate you laying that out directly and explicitly.

JS:

Well, and if it‘s OK, I‘d like to just add on like for me as a teacher, I wanted the research. I wanted to know what I need to be doing. And I kind of got hoodwinked, right? Thinking that I got led down a road that wasn‘t aligned. And I think we‘d have tools that people are becoming more aware about. Like, what is the research? What‘s going to give me the greatest effect size? So, John Hattie in his work, Visible Learning, is available to people. And I think about the IES practice guides around intervention and effective adolescent literacy instruction, more people are getting aware about the research. We just take some first steps here.

PA:

You take one step forward and keep going, right? That‘s how we learn. Thank you so much. If you could speak right now directly to every new school teacher listening, what encouragement or what challenge would you leave with them as they begin this new school year?

JS:

Well, I think we again … I‘m gonna circle back about one thing we have to do, friends, is we have to get to know our students, right? I was just talking to a good friend who teaches an exploring literature class in high school, and she was looking at a roster, and some of them were multilanguage learners. And I‘m like, “OK, go into their access scores, find out where they‘re at. Find out how long they‘ve been in school. Find out what‘s out there.” Like get to know your students for sure. And then the second thing we want to make sure is understand like teachers, literacy is everyone‘s responsibility. It‘s not just the English language arts teacher. It‘s not just the reading specialist. It‘s not just the reading interventionist. It‘s not just the special education teacher. It is going to take all of us coming together and improving our instruction, talking about the data and shifting our and our practices in order to close those reading gaps. Because, friends, we can do this. We can change kids‘ lives if we just really keep literacy and instruction at the forefront. And we just have to make sure that we just keep growing.

PA:

And every teacher is a literacy teacher.

JS:

Every teacher is a literacy teacher, they really are. And we have to break down those silos that we have in the middle school and high school.

PA:

Yes, definitely. I absolutely love it. Well, Jeanne, thank you for sharing your wisdom, your experience, and your heart for middle school readers. Your work reminds us that it is never too late for students to grow, for teachers to grow. We want to build that confidence. We want to discover what students are capable of, and we‘re grateful for the practical strategy that you shared with us today and for your decades of leadership in helping educate us for evidence-based literacy instruction to the students who need it most. Is there anything you would like to share with us? I hear you have a book.

JS:

Yes. So I‘ve been holding adolescent literacy in my heart for a long time. And many secondary teachers would reach out to me and say, “You know, is there a book for me on the science of reading?” And I‘d have to honestly say, “No, there isn‘t one yet.” And so, I brought together some leading educators in the field of literacy in the space of psychology to collaborate with me on a book titled Reading Isn‘t Optional: Fulfilling the Promise of Literacy for Secondary Students. And right now, The Reading League National is hosting a book study, which I know it will be finished by the time this goes to air in August, but I want people to know that you can still access that information with The Reading League. I want people to know that this book is available through Solution Tree and it‘s designed, right? It‘s designed for impact, meaning it‘s designed for helping teachers come together to understand what is the science of reading, the science of information, the science of instruction. What is the role or the foundations of literacy transformation with leadership, and coaching, and MTSS? And then, what is the evidence aligned? I say evidence-aligned instructional practices that we can bring to all areas in secondary literacy.

PA:

Absolutely love it. To our listeners, thank you for joining us for this episode of EDVIEW360.

Narrator:

This has been an EDVIEW360 Podcast. For additional thought-provoking discussions, sign up for our blog, webinar, and podcast series at voyagersopris.com/EDVIEW360. If you enjoyed the show, we‘d love a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts and to help other people like you find our show. Thank you.