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In a way, I've been thinking about this particular issue of Voices from the Middle for about 15 years. That's hard to do since VM didn't even exist 15 years ago. What did exist, though, was me in a classroom with kids who struggled through texts. I wanted answers to my questions about teaching reading to these students; if I couldn't find answers, I wanted suggestions. If I couldn't find suggestions, I wanted conversations that let me know other teachers were struggling with their struggling readers, conversations that let me know I was not alone with my frustrations.
I began looking for information that would help me know what to do when students struggle with texts. These many years later, I still find myself looking for answers, suggestions, and conversations. And, as I travel the country talking with teachers, I find that many of us are asking the same questions about how to help struggling readers. Thus, this issue: "When Readers Struggle."
My own work with students who struggle to read has led me to some conclusions that I'd like to share here. First, we can all be struggling readers. Hand me my VCR programming manual, and I'm a struggling reader. Give me some 19th-century poetry, certain 20th-century classics, a book on string physics, or an outline of quantum physics, and I'm a struggling reader. I'll suggest, however, that what separates me from some of our students who struggle with texts is that I'm an independent reader while those students are dependent readers. The distinction is that as an independent reader, when I encounter a text that...