They Don’t Know It’s Phonics — and the Real Secondary Reading Gap Is Word-Level
“I don’t think my students understand they need phonics help, they just know they struggle with reading.”
That one sentence captures what so many intermediate and secondary teachers see every day: students experience reading as hard, tiring, and embarrassing—but they often don’t have language for why. They know the feeling of struggle. They don’t know the source.
Another teacher said it this way:
“I find sometimes my students simply don’t have the awareness that they aren’t reading with ease or fluency because it’s how it’s always been for them. They think their experience is everyone’s.”
When reading has always felt effortful, students don’t realize it can feel different. They don’t know what “ease” actually feels like. And without that awareness, reading difficulty can start to feel less like a skill gap and more like an identity.
A small survey with a loud signal
Last week, I opened a short educator survey titled Phonics Practice for Older Students: Quick Educator Survey.
So far, 21 teachers have responded. On its own, that might not sound like a lot. But here’s the data point that matters: 17 of the 21 asked to be part of a pilot launching in the next few weeks.
To clarify what that pilot is: it’s not a finished product rollout. It’s a set of lesson cycles I’m actively building right now—and the pilot is the process I’m using to make sure those lessons meet the real needs of older students and the real constraints teachers are working within. Teachers aren’t just “trying something new.” They’re helping verify what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change before anything is released more broadly.
That level of opt-in isn’t casual curiosity. It’s urgency—and readiness.
The hidden awareness gap in older readers
Older students often don’t experience reading difficulty as “I need phonics.” They experience it as:
“Reading takes me forever.”
“I hate reading out loud.”
“I can’t stay focused when I read.”
“I can read it, but I don’t really get it.”
“I forget what I read.”
Those are real symptoms. But they don’t point students toward a cause—especially when the cause is word-level: decoding, multisyllabic word reading, morphology, and fluency.
That’s why teachers can see two very different student responses to the same underlying problem. One teacher described it perfectly: some students are apathetic, and some are frustrated but willing to engage in phonics practice.
Both responses make sense.
Apathy is often protection: If I don’t try, I can’t fail publicly.
Frustration is often readiness: I want this to work—if it feels like it actually will.
When effort becomes identity (and why clarity changes behavior)
When students don’t understand why reading feels hard, they tend to fill in the blank with conclusions about themselves:
“I’m bad at reading.”
“I’m not a reader.”
“I’m dumb.”
“My brain doesn’t work like that.”
Those aren’t accurate statements. They’re what happens when a student has spent years working twice as hard for half the payoff.
Clarity can interrupt that cycle. When students learn that reading difficulty often has a specific, addressable source—and that targeted word-level practice can change their experience—they’re more likely to persist. Not because they suddenly love reading, but because the work finally feels credible and the goal feels reachable.
The overlooked truth: secondary reading gaps are often word-level
In many secondary settings, reading support defaults to comprehension strategies, accommodations, or “read more.”
But for a significant number of students, the barrier is earlier in the chain: word-level efficiency.
When decoding isn’t automatic, students burn cognitive energy just trying to recognize words—especially longer, academic words. The result looks like a comprehension problem, but the root cause is often that they can’t get through the words smoothly enough to access the meaning.
What teachers reported in the survey aligns with this reality: the strongest signals pointed to multisyllabic decoding and morphology (roots, prefixes, suffixes) as urgent needs for older students.
The system barrier: secondary teachers weren’t trained for phonics intervention
Here’s another truth we need to name plainly: most secondary teachers were trained for content instruction—not structured literacy or phonics-based intervention.
That puts educators in a difficult position:
They can see students breaking down on longer words.
They know students aren’t reading with ease or fluency.
They want to help.
But they often haven’t been given a clear instructional roadmap for multisyllabic decoding and morphology that fits a middle or high school schedule.
And even when teachers do have knowledge, they often don’t have tools that match the maturity of older students.
The tools gap: why “phonics for older students” often fails in practice
Teachers are not saying, “We don’t believe in phonics.” They’re saying, “We can’t find something we can actually use.”
In intermediate and secondary settings, the barriers tend to be practical and predictable:
Tools feel too babyish or childish—students shut down.
Tools don’t fit the schedule—teachers can’t sustain them.
Practice isn’t private or dignified—students avoid it.
Materials aren’t built for mixed gaps—teachers spend hours patching lessons together.
This is exactly why so many teachers end up relying on teacher-made materials. It’s not preference. It’s necessity.
Why I’m creating Juniper Reading CoLab
Juniper Reading CoLab is my response to what teachers are naming both in the quotes and in the survey participation.
The goal is not to publish another curriculum that sits on a shelf.
The goal is to build age-respectful, classroom-ready, word-level tools for intermediate and secondary student. Tools that teachers can implement in real conditions, and that students will actually engage with consistently.
The model behind the tools
Juniper Reading CoLab tools aren’t one-time curriculum purchases. They’re versioned decoding tools—built, tested, refined, and improved through short classroom cycles inspired by PLC-style data loops:
Create → Pilot → Review (Teacher-Verified) → Refine → Release
As a teacher, I’ve been frustrated by how traditional curriculum is often created: developed far from classrooms, delivered as “done,” and expected to fit every schedule, every skill gap, and every student.
I’ve also wondered for years: Why aren’t teachers a central part of curriculum creation? In practice, they already are. Teachers build materials from scratch, remix what they’re given, and revise lessons constantly to meet the needs in front of them. It’s one reason Teachers Pay Teachers has grown so much—educators are solving real problems for real classrooms, in real time.
Juniper Reading CoLab is built on that same truth, but with a tighter system.
Teachers are the review cycle. Their feedback determines what stays, what changes, and what ships. The goal is to design for real constraints: limited minutes, mixed skill gaps, and materials that work without adding more burden.
That’s why the pilot matters. It isn’t a “try it and see” add-on, it’s the mechanism that keeps the work honest. Short cycles. Clear signals. Rapid refinement. Until the lessons are something teachers can actually use, and students will actually do.
Where I’m starting
The first focus area is Juniper Decode: multisyllabic decoding and morphology.
Not because those are trendy terms. Teachers are telling us those are the bottlenecks that keep older students from accessing grade-level text.
What effective word-level practice must look like in real schools
If we want word-level practice to stick in secondary settings, it has to be designed around the realities of classrooms—not ideal conditions.
That means it must be:
Short (5–15 minutes) so it can fit intervention blocks, stations, or targeted routines
Immediate and corrective, so students don’t rehearse errors
Spiraled, so skills actually consolidate over time
Visible in progress, so students can see growth and stay with it
Independent, so teachers aren’t required to sit beside every student
Teacher-informative, so educators can see patterns and reteach efficiently
Dignity-first, so older students don’t feel “babyed” or exposed
Those aren’t “nice extras.” They’re the minimum requirements for sustainability.
What teachers can do tomorrow: the 2-minute awareness move
While tools are being refined through the pilot cycles, here’s a fast move teachers can use immediately to build awareness and reduce shame:
Normalize
“This is a skill, not a trait. Struggle doesn’t mean you’re not smart.”Name decoding in plain language
“Often reading feels hard because your brain is working too hard to read the words—especially longer words. We’re going to practice breaking words into parts so you don’t have to guess.”Make growth visible
Track patterns mastered, error types shrinking, or accuracy improving—something students can see and believe.
It’s not a motivational speech. It’s clarity and clarity helps students try.
This is unmet need, not casual interest
The teacher quotes are telling us something specific: older students often live inside reading struggle without the language to name the cause. The survey response is telling us something just as specific: teachers are looking for practical, age-appropriate ways to address word-level gaps—and they’re ready to pilot solutions quickly.
When 17 of 21 educators opt into a pilot in the next few weeks—and that pilot is lesson cycles being built and verified in real classrooms—that isn’t casual interest. It’s unmet need.
Juniper Reading CoLab is being built for that need: to help older students develop the word-level skills they deserve, and to give teachers tools that fit the reality they’re working in.
