Woburn middle‑school reading specialists lay out structured literacy program; staff report early fluency gains

Woburn — Two middle‑school reading specialists and a district humanities coordinator told the Woburn School Committee that a set of targeted interventions, staff training and schoolwide “morpheme” routines are being used this year to improve reading fluency and vocabulary among students in grades 6–8.

The presentation on the district’s second year of dedicated middle‑school reading specialists was led by Abby Gillis, the district’s 6–8 humanities coordinator, and included reading specialists who work at the Joyce and Kennedy middle schools. Gillis and the specialists described training in the Wilson literacy approach and other programs, use of STAR Renaissance and DIBELS screening data to identify candidates for intervention, and a “Morpheme Magic” routine distributed to all teachers as a tier‑1 vocabulary strategy.

Why it matters: School leaders said improving fluency and vocabulary is intended to make grade‑level content more accessible in science and social studies and to reduce the number of students who need long‑term remedial support. The district reported that 122 students at the Joyce and 117 at the Kennedy scored in the district’s “red” range on the STAR Renaissance winter screener; not all of those students will enter tier‑2 intervention after further screening, but the figures were presented as the pool being…