Tackling the Adolescent Literacy Crisis: Why Elementary School Content Doesn't Make the Grade

On the latest Future of Education, Louise Baigelman, the founder of startup Story Shares, joined me to discuss the reading crisis that affects not only elementary-school students, but also adolescents. For adolescent students, although they need to learn the same skill sets as elementary-school students to become strong readers, how they build those skills needs to be different. Baigelman shared her insights from teaching middle school English language learners and working with students with learning disabilities. In particular, she spoke to the challenges she had in finding appropriate books—from a content perspective—for these students. The dearth of materials these learners found engaging—while still being rigorous to the skills they needed to build—is what caused her to found Story Shares.

A few choice quotes that Louise offered from our conversation that I found revealing:

We've actually combined these decodable texts as chapters into a chapter book so that they feel like a YA novel, but each chapter is on a discrete sound or skill that they're practicing.

and

Ninety-two percent of educators said they currently can't find good books to offer their students to practice if they're struggling with reading.

As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation, watch it on YouTube, or read the transcript.

Michael Horn:

There's a real reading crisis, not just across the country, but across the world, where lots of individuals, they've progressed past third grade, where you're supposed to theoretically have learned to read and just have not developed the foundational skills to do so. To help us talk about this and to present some solutions to these problems is Louise Baigelman. She's the founder of the startup Story Shares. And Louise, first, it's great to see you, but I'm so excited to talk to you because of what you're building to really tackle what is an immense problem.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here and chat with you about it. Thank you for having me.

Morning Warmup

Michael Horn:

Yeah, absolutely. So let's launch into our morning warm up. Why don't you give folks just a sense of how you come into this question of literacy, your own background, working in education before you founded Story Shares.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, so I'm a reader and a writer by nature, and I was an English major. I went to Teach for America right from college, and I taught middle school English language learners in Lynn, north of Boston. And that was where the initial seed for Story Shares came from as far as working with students who were mature but struggling with reading and having challenges, which I'll talk more about, with finding the right books for them. And I then worked at a family foundation that was interested in that same challenge, but from a learning disabilities perspective, older students who may have dyslexia or another reason for struggling with reading and need help from there. So that was where the Story Shares came from initially.

Michael Horn:

Perfect. No, you had this rich background in education and describe the problem that you saw. I mean, I sort of alluded to it in the intro, but really dimensionalize what you saw on the ground when you were working with adolescent youth.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, so it was striking to me, and it still is, reading is often taught in elementary school. That's how it was created. But my students were in middle school, and they were beginning readers. So they had just moved from Haiti or the Dominican Republic, and they were 12- 13- years old in middle school, but they were reading at a 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade level. And at that point, the books that I could find to offer them to read that were on their reading level were books written for 1st, 2nd, 3rd graders. And so those were books Junie B. Jones, even Hop on Pop if you're working on the very basic levels. And my students wanted nothing to do with those stories.

They were really aware of themselves and their peers and what everyone else was reading. They didn't want to have to read baby books, but the books that their peers were reading were just far above their level and way too difficult for them to access. And I was noticing the impact of their low literacy across the board. I was supporting these students in English, but also in becoming a middle school student in America and being able to succeed in science and math and social studies. And without them being able to read, they were falling behind in all of those subjects. They couldn't read the directions, but I couldn't find books to offer them while we were practicing at these skills. And so for me, without good books that they could read and want to read, it would just compound. They wouldn't read.

They'd rather pretend to read a difficult book than actually read. And so their skills, they stagnated at that point. And then the ripples from there across the subjects and more broadly were dramatic. So I just wondered, isn't there a way to create a book that we could offer these students that's engaging to them, that's relevant? It's written for their age level, features, characters that look like them, more representative and inclusive, but was just more simply told, written in a more basic way so that they could scaffold up as they improved their skills.

Michael Horn:

I want to get to that in a moment, but I actually want to stay on this problem for a moment because I'm just sort of curious. You've probably done some work quantifying it and figuring out how big we're talking about. I assume it’s not just kids of immigrants coming into this country with English as a second language. It's pretty widespread in a shocking sort of way. Right?

Louise Baigelman:

Totally. And that's the other fascinating part, is there's so many different populations that for any number of reasons are struggling with reading beyond the typical age. That was compounded dramatically by COVID because any underserved population fell further behind when they didn't have a school to go to. So the Nape report card that came out in 2023 had 68% of fourth graders are not proficient in reading. 68%. So more than two thirds of students hit fourth grade not being able to read on grade level. And at that point, it gets worse every year because not only are there not instruction models and even teachers trained in supporting those students at the middle school and high school level, but also there aren't books for them to read that are relevant for them. So 68%, it includes students, English Language learners, it's students with learning differences, low income communities where they haven't been exposed to the right instruction early on, wow a significant number of students.

Michael Horn:

And just to make that clear, when you're talking about these learning challenges at fourth grade, they're basically testing things like phonics and phonemic awareness and decoding. We're not even talking about comprehension and background knowledge being the problem here. This is very foundational skill level reading that this is picking up. Is that right?

Louise Baigelman:

It is, but it's actually part of the spectrum in a sense of reading challenges and even delays. Essentially, a student at a fourth grade level or an 8th grade level could be a struggling reader for any number of reasons. It's the decoding and the phonics. If they miss that piece. Some students mastered that, but they haven't built the background knowledge and fluency. They can read you something, but they can't tell you what happened in that story. They're not making those connections while they're reading or their fluency. Their challenge to actually work through the words is getting in the way of their comprehension.

So our goal, and we can talk about the solution piece, but is to actually have wherever you are on that reading journey, if you're behind having opportunities.

Work Cycle

Michael Horn:

To address it, well, it's a perfect shift. So let's get into the work cycle as the second segment of the show and let's talk about the solution that you built, Story Shares, and what you're aiming to do through that solution.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah. So Story Shares is a solution based on engagement to really connect with those students beyond the third grade that are not yet reading proficiently and providing them with content so books and things to read that are relevant and engaging and readable for them, but also supporting teachers and opportunities for how do you really inspire independent reading practice at any different level? How do you find the right books, the choices that will actually make a student feel empowered to want to read. And so Story Shares initially started as a writing contest, where we wanted to see could we provide some incentives and awareness of this audience, some guidance and tools for authors and teachers around the world to create books to write stories, but to use some pretty straightforward principles to make them just more readable for students who don't yet have those core strengths. And so the first contest we did was super successful. We ended up with hundreds of submissions and did a bunch of pilot testing and got really great feedback on those best stories from the classroom. And we then expanded upon that and done several contests where we've managed to get thousands of stories from over 150 countries around the world from really diverse global authors. And they use our writing platform, which actually gives them some feedback on reading level as they're writing. So it'll let them know if that word was really way too challenging, you might want to but it also just says things like write shorter sentences, shorter chapters, shorter paragraphs, if you use words that are a little bit more graspable.

And we've just compiled this amazing collection of stories that we then have transitioned to think about how do we refine the best one? We curate them, of course. We get so many stories but we find that about 30% of them are on target enough to kind of put through our process. And so now we publish them and tag them so that you can go into this library collection and say, I want a story for a 9th grader but at a first grade level and find all those choices that meet that intersection.

Michael Horn:

Let's break it down even a little bit more, because I think one of the books that you showed me when we talked a few months ago was, if I'm remembering correctly, it was about someone who maybe is learning digraphs, right? Ch and Th and stuff like that. Right. These basic sounds, if I'm remembering correctly. And so you basically could say, like you said, 9th-grade level, maybe this sort of ethnic background or this sort of set of interests or whatever, and find a reader tailored to that skill that I'm actually building, but that is in a way that's topical and interesting to me. Is that how granular we're talking?

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah. So it's this brand new initiative that we're so excited about, which is thinking about those students who've gotten beyond the third grade, and they really need the foundational skills. They need focused science of reading, aligned instruction on these different phonemes and graph names and how they build on each other in a scope and sequence. And what we discovered is that through this author community that has contributed to our library, so many of them are educators, and a lot of them are actually wills and trained educators, and they are Dyslexia specialists. And so we were able to create some guidance. Again, you don't want to have to offer a Bob book to a 9th grader, right? My son is in first grade, and he's already kind of like past the Bob book, so but how do you give a book that has discrete sounds that would be engaging to an older student? And so what we came up with, and the guidance that we provide to our authors, is we feature teenage characters. We use photographs, full color photographs instead of kind of line drawings so that they look more like a graphic novel that maybe your peer is reading. We've actually combined these decodable texts as chapters into a chapter book so that they feel like a YA novel, but each chapter is on a discrete sound or skill that they're practicing.

And then each book is in a series where they go along a scope and sequence that aligns with some of the most used ones, but for older students. And our writers are able to take that and then create these amazing books that we then have to align a little bit more closely on our side. But we have our first set that just came out last week, and we're really getting amazing feedback, so congrats on that.

Specials

Michael Horn:

Tell us as we switch into our specials, tell us more about this series that you've just launched and give us a little bit of a feel for it because it sounds pretty enticing and I can see why I haven't learned my basic phonemes or whatever. Sticking me in front of some sort of first grade reader or decodable is not going to really get me excited. In fact, I might be embarrassed and then sort of tune out to school. I assume embarrassment and social pressure is a big part of what you're combating. Tell us about this new series to tackle that.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, so that is exactly right. We're really addressing that effective piece of I want to have something to read, in addition to having the books really meet the needs of the skills. So we had so many conversations as we were starting to work with more schools and libraries and distributors to schools and libraries, where people were saying, what we really need is decodable texts for middle school and high school students, even late elementary ones, that they would want to read. And several people said, but it would be impossible to make a decodable text for an older student.

Michael Horn:

Actually, stay on that for a second. Why would they say that? Why hasn't this been done? Why isn't there another solution out there for this?

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about that question. It's tricky to use few words and tell a good story, and I think that's one of the reasons people thought it was impossible. How could you make it engaging for teens if you're only allowed to have a few words on a page? I think also, just more broadly, there's this really exciting new push for the science of reading where we're realizing if we can teach things systematically early on, that we can set students up for literacy success. And that's a shift in and of itself. And so there's so much going into that. But the problem is that there's been so many students who've gone past that point without it that there's this other part we haven't yet. I think it's just that we haven't quite yet turned our attention to of how do you apply the science of reading to the beyond third grade piece? It's the intervention side, so it is tricky, but on the other hand, it's simple in a way. When you start to think about how do you address it? Well, you definitely don't want a circle guy.

Right? Again, they have a total place, but.

Michael Horn:

It's not for the team.

Louise Baigelman:

What about a photograph? Right. Or how about they love to text? Like, we have one whole book that's in this series where it's actually like chat bubbles, where they're engaging that way and there's graphic novel components. We know what teens like. It's just that we haven't yet somehow married the two. Yeah.

Michael Horn:

And so you're doing this you've launched this series right. To tackle that. I cut you off before, but keep telling us more about it. Yeah.

Louise Baigelman:

So we felt like it was a good challenge to take on an important time to do so and started playing with just first making some prototypes. Could we sort of address that? And then we created this model for our authors, reached out to the ones that we knew already were educators with some good expertise, and we've just produced this first series. It was honestly a bigger undertaking than we initially thought, just because there's so many different scopes and sequences out there and thinking about how do you make it both meaningful practice that will really be something teachers can use, but also something that students want to read. But we've landed in this amazing place, and we actually just have run a pilot study for a few weeks now where we don't have the post survey results yet. But the presurvey, it's about just sort of 50 educators, 92% of them said they currently can't find good books to offer their students to practice if they're struggling with reading.

Michael Horn:

Wow.

Louise Baigelman:

So that feels dramatic to us. And again, solvable with some focus on the issue, congratulations.

Michael Horn:

But that sounds like some secret sauce that you've actually created in terms of getting the content and the skill, building and marrying them together in a way that's engaging but still instructional and perhaps not something anyone could go do, if I'm reading you correctly.

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah. Thank you. It's kind of this combination of the model we had before for Hilo text and this new shift that makes so much sense so that you can meet those students even before they are able to read Hilo.

Michael Horn:

Got it. So stay with us for a moment. Now, you've launched this. Who are you working with in terms of schools and educators? Like, who's using these materials? What are you learning out in the field? Are there some good stories that sort of demonstrate impact or good results that you have to share?

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, absolutely. We have some great partnerships with all sorts of schools. So we provide our books and our digital library on a school level, classroom level, district level, and then we also work with distributor partners, libraries, and then actually Ed Tech, curriculum provider partners who also are looking for texts that can fit into the curriculum they're creating. We have a really cool new partnership with Denver Public Schools through the Carmel Hill Fund where they are actually really focused on independent reading for students at any level. And so we're doing a big pilot. We're providing a lot of books there. We have recently been hearing the most from special education classrooms, teachers who are really eager to find these kinds of books. And we also have a lot of Yale teachers working with the stories.

One of my favorite sort of pieces of feedback recently is from a teacher who said that she has students who they're always kind of a challenge during any time where there is independent reading because they don't have books. To read, and they end up kind of messing around and that she offered them one of the story shares books and one of these students read for a whole block. And then afterwards, he nudged his friend and said, you have to read this one. And then he went to the teacher and said, can I find other books like this?

Michael Horn:

That's a good win.

Louise Baigelman:

Full cycle.

Closing Time

Michael Horn:

Yeah, that's a good win. That's a good win. Okay, let's shift into closing time. As we wrap up here. Where are the future directions for where you go with this?

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, so as I mentioned, there's this larger problem around. Not only do we need better books that meet students where they are and also engage them, we also need to think about literacy for the older grades now that we have such a huge proportion of students who aren't yet able to use reading to then do everything else they need it for. So how do we think about literacy? PD for teachers that are working with those older students who were meant to teach science in 9th grade, but now they have to also teach reading? How do we think about interweaving it across disciplines within the curriculum, so that the social studies teacher has ways to support the struggling reader in order to access that text on whatever topic they're studying? We're thinking about. Yeah. How do we really look at this beyond third grade reading intervention such that we can start transforming those trajectories for the students who have been falling behind?

Michael Horn:

I'd love to hear what kind of feedback you get from that. Right. Because I can imagine you've just raised a really good point. Right. Like the 9th grade teacher doesn't matter their subject area, whether it's English, social studies, math, whatever. They have not been trained in how to teach the science of reading. That's not been part of their educational pathway. They're not trained for it.

They've been trained to deliver the content, presumably, or work with students in learning the content in their particular course. So how do you crack that nut? Because they have to sort of be all hands on deck, right?

Louise Baigelman:

Well, it's really one of the biggest challenges right now for it, is we weren't thinking about teaching reading at that point. So there's a couple of pieces, if you can think about it as an interdisciplinary literacy is in every subject, and background knowledge, as we know, is one of the core pieces to reading proficiency. If we can start thinking about it as interconnected, that in social studies, they're doing this and it relates to this topic. And in Ela, they're reading a book that also uses the same vocabulary, and so it's reinforcing it, and then in science as well. And you have practice texts for each of those pieces because there's the instruction side, but there's also the practice side. You've just learned a skill or you've learned something. Now go deeper or go stronger and if you don't have the right level practice text, you can't either. So if we can start thinking about it in a little bit more of an integrated way and providing some of those teachers who now do have to think about literacy with some of the tricks and tips to use, then yeah, start moving that needle.

Michael Horn:

No, that's exciting. That's exciting. And I think that's such a good point, which is that after you've sort of learned how to read, that background knowledge becomes so important and it all becomes very interwoven, as you said, integrated. Right. And so we have to think about every subject, really, as part of reading instruction. Not just that ela block, but it's literally I mean, even arts, music, that's all part of building one's background knowledge to be able to access more complex texts across a wider range, right, of exactly. Yeah. So how do folks that maybe are intrigued this first time they're hearing of Story shares? How do they get in touch? How do they follow what you're doing? How do they maybe put in some orders for some series of books if they want? How does that all work?

Louise Baigelman:

Yeah, so our website is storyshares.org, and you can visit there. There's a teacher portal where it also has the direct links for ordering books and getting in touch with us. If you want to place larger orders, you can always reach out to me directly. My email is Louise@storyshares.org work, but, yeah, we're really excited about building partnerships with more schools and educators, so we'd love to get in touch with anyone.

Michael Horn:

Louise, thank you for doing this work. Appreciate it. Fascinating to get to know story shares better. And for all of you tuning in, we'll be back. Next time on The Future of Education.