By Ellen Gelman

Imagine being a high school student sitting in a room where everyone around you seems to understand texts that to you feel like a foreign language. Imagine knowing you’re smart, knowing you have ideas worth sharing, but feeling locked out because the words on the page won’t cooperate.

That was Eddy’s daily reality: when he walked into my high school classroom last fall, he was reading at roughly a third-grade level. Like many students in his shoes, he learned to hide it well. He stayed quiet, looked down during read-alouds and nodded politely when I asked if he understood something. He built survival strategies, not because he lacked ability, but because he was never properly taught how to read. 

My Reading Academy class exists for students like Eddy. It’s a place where we slow down, strip literacy back to the essentials and rebuild the foundation piece by piece. We use structured literacy rooted in the science of reading — phonics, decoding, fluency practice, vocabulary routines and daily opportunities to read and discuss texts that grow in complexity. It is patient, intentional instruction many older students like Eddy missed the first time around.

Eddy was hesitant at first, not used to adults giving him space to relearn something he quietly struggled with for years. He expected to feel behind, but quickly realized that in this class, everyone started somewhere and everyone belonged.

Small steps came first: sounding out long words without guessing, reading a paragraph without freezing, finally understanding why vowels behaved the way they did. Those wins built Eddy’s confidence and showed him he wasn’t broken; he had simply never been given the tools. Eddy began participating, reading aloud, asking questions, and even encouraging classmates. I’ll never forget the day he read a full page without hesitation. When he finished, he looked up and said, “I’ve never been able to do that.” Eddy’s story is why so many educators, including Teach Plus Colorado Policy Fellows, have urged our state leaders to take a closer look at how policies like Colorado’s READ Act can support students beyond the early grades. Students don’t stop needing explicit, structured reading instruction just because they get older. 

That’s the moment I wish every policymaker and school leader could witness. And it’s the moment when we should commit to doing everything we can so Eddy and others like him can do just that: read. Here are a few ways we can make this happen: 

Invest in structured literacy.
In my classroom, there are aha moments every day when my students finally learn in ways that are explicit, systematic and responsive to how the brain learns to read. Many of my students arrive in high school years behind in reading. When I use routines grounded in phonics, morphology, fluency, and comprehension, students like Eddy begin to decode with confidence, make meaning from complex texts, and see themselves as readers for the first time. Structured literacy is the foundation that allows students to access every other subject and opportunity in school.

Give teachers the training they need.
Effective structured literacy does not happen by accident. It requires deep, ongoing professional learning. In my own practice, targeted training has allowed me to analyze student data, diagnose specific reading gaps, and intentionally design lessons that meet students where they are. Teachers want to do right by their students, but without sustained training in evidence-based reading instruction, we are asked to solve a complex problem with limited tools. Investing in teacher training is an investment in instructional quality, student growth and long-term academic equity.

Give students the time and space to rebuild the skills they missed.
Students cannot catch up on years of unfinished learning in short intervention blocks or test-prep cycles. In my classroom, growth happens because students are given protected time to practice foundational skills without shame or pressure. When we slow down, provide repetition and honor progress over perfection, students rebuild not only their reading abilities but also their confidence. True literacy recovery requires schedules, staffing, and policies that recognize learning to read as a developmental process. It’s one that deserves time, patience and intentional support at every grade level.

Eddy’s growth didn’t stay invisible for long. When we ran midyear assessments, his progress was undeniable. He was reading more fluently, accurately and with a level of comprehension we had not seen before. And then, by spring, the leaps became almost unbelievable: Eddy was reading on a twelfth-grade level. A student who had entered my classroom performing like an elementary reader was now reading at the level expected of a graduating senior.

This June, Eddy will graduate high school reading on grade level for the first time in his life. When he walks across that stage, he won’t just be receiving a diploma. He’ll be carrying proof of something far more important: older students can catch up. If we invest in structured literacy, give teachers the training they need and give students the time and space to rebuild the skills they missed, literacy gaps can close for Eddy and all Colorado students like him. 

Ellen Gelman is a high school literacy interventionist and 10th grade lead at Rocky Mountain Prep SMART in Denver. She is a 2025-2026 Teach Plus Colorado Charter Policy Fellow.