Roughly 33 percent of eighth-grade students show less than basic proficiency on national reading assessments.^[1] To help them, many schools turn to reading interventions. But any middle school teacher knows that engaging struggling adolescent readers in reading interventions is no easy task, and that disengagement can quickly become a barrier to success.^[2] It can be difficult to balance teaching foundational skills with cognitively demanding, engaging texts. Reading-intervention teachers also often face limited planning time, inconsistent access to materials, and competing school priorities, which together can make it difficult to design cohesive lessons. The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) attempts to overcome some of these difficulties.

STARI at a Glance

STARI is a yearlong, evidence-based intervention developed by the Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP) Institute that aims to improve the reading skills of struggling adolescents by integrating instruction in foundational skills with complex comprehension tasks and motivating, discussion-based learning.^[3] It focuses on addressing students’ reading skills, confidence, and engagement.

The insights in this issue focus draw on early implementation findings from MDRC’s ongoing study of STARI, which is funded by a U.S. Department of Education Innovation and Research grant. The study examines how STARI is implemented and what impact it has in middle schools across the country. STARI study schools receive the full curriculum (teaching binders, student workbooks, novels, etc.) and up to 20 hours of SERP-provided professional learning delivered throughout the year in various formats. As part of this work, MDRC’s team spoke with several STARI teachers about their experience and learned which aspects of the program they felt promoted student engagement.^[4] In those interviews, teachers said that STARI’s professional learning and well-laid-out curriculum with relatable texts created the conditions for them to focus more on instruction and for students to engage more. While these findings are specific to STARI, they address design features of supplemental reading interventions that may be relevant for district and school leaders to consider when selecting or developing any intervention.

How STARI Supports Teachers

Well-Timed Professional Learning

Teachers noted that STARI’s professional learning was accessible and well-timed, which helped them feel more prepared. They also valued that the training was offered in a variety of formats (virtual and in person, both in real time with an instructor and on their own, not at the same time as an instructor), allowing them to engage with the material in ways that worked with their schedules. Several teachers described how STARI’s just-in-time training modules (that is, modules aligned to upcoming units as they came) helped them understand what to expect in each unit and how to approach specific instructional routines. Teachers also highlighted that they were able to revisit online training modules and videos when questions or challenges arose during the school year, helping them clarify expectations and address classroom needs.

A Comprehensive and Well-Laid-Out Curriculum

I used to pull fluency from here, and phonics work from here, and do reading, you know, getting a novel and trying to make it all go together. It just took an immense amount of time, and it still wasn’t good. I was doing all the components, but they didn’t weave together like STARI weaves together.

This teacher’s reflection illustrates a broader theme that emerged across interviews: Teachers consistently described how STARI’s structured lessons and materials helped them concentrate on their students’ needs rather than preparation. They said that a curriculum that laid out lesson flows and included pacing suggestions, discussion prompts, and scaffolding (recommendations for how students were to build skills in a logical sequence, with early skills providing the structure needed to add later ones) removed guesswork for teachers and provided clarity about what students would accomplish each day. Because STARI includes scaffolded fluency practice, phonics activities, and reading prompts in each lesson plan, teachers did not need to create separate materials for students at different reading levels. Teachers said that this reduction in preparation demands freed up more of their planning time, allowing them to focus more on how best to support personalized learning and individual students’ needs.

How STARI Engages Students

Texts that Build Connection

STARI teachers reported that the reading materials (for example, books, essays, and excerpts) were culturally relevant and age appropriate. Teachers frequently attributed strong student engagement to the fact that STARI texts felt meaningful, current, and relatable. For example, one STARI teacher said:

When we started the unit about foster care, half the kids have either had an encounter with our Department of Child and Family Services or had a foster parent. So they related. I think it was very good for them. I heard a few times students go, “Oh, it’s not just me.”

A theme emerged: Teachers said that when students saw their identities, experiences, and cultures reflected in the stories they read, they engaged more meaningfully, reading to comprehend as opposed to reading to check a box. As another STARI teacher put it:

The kids got really connected to the characters. For students that often struggle in their regular [English Language Arts] class where we’re reading from a [reading textbook], they don’t necessarily see themselves in the text, but this, they actually connected to it.

Curricular Components that Build Confidence

Compared with reading curricula that rely on a single, teacher-led discussion format, STARI offers a wider range of student- and teacher-led reading and discussion routines. The aim is for students to reach a deeper comprehension of texts by exchanging ideas with their peers during debates or partner reading, digging below the surface to uncover a text’s true meaning. Additionally, STARI engages students through its daily fluency drills, where students repeatedly practice reading aloud short texts at four different difficulty levels to improve their reading rate and apply their comprehension skills. STARI teachers shared that their students were very engaged in these drills and appreciated being able to track their progress. As one teacher saw it:

I think they were really engaged in the oral fluency because these are students that do struggle in that area. Them seeing their word count and then noticing that they are reading more text quickly and they’re also comprehending it ... it gave them confidence to read aloud in our non-STARI classes.

Teachers said that increasing word count and speed represented a tangible win for students who had previously struggled, motivating them to keep making progress. Another teacher reflected that students who were considered “wallflowers” (less prone to speaking in class) in general English Language Arts classes started speaking up more during STARI, because STARI’s small-group structure encouraged all students to participate.

Looking Ahead: What’s Next for the Study of STARI

An early finding from this work is clear: Teachers felt that the STARI components highlighted here allowed them to focus more deeply on supporting students as they in turn became more engaged, confident readers. MDRC will continue examining STARI’s impact, implementation, and costs, with comprehensive results to be shared in a final report expected in 2028.