Building Reading Materials That Fit the Student, Not the Grade Label

Building Reading Materials That Fit the Student, Not the Grade Label

When a struggling reader does not fit the grade-level resource in front of them, the fix is rarely as simple as handing over an easier book. Dr. Yngri Klumpers, founder and CEO of Heritage Learning Press K-12, draws on her years in sixth-grade inclusion and special education to describe a more deliberate approach: keep the thinking task, change the access points, and watch what the student can actually do.

Start With What the Student Understands

Klumpers recalled a common pattern from her teaching days. Students could contribute thoughtful ideas during discussion, then struggle to show the same understanding on a reading assignment. "A student could explain why a character made a choice, yet get stuck when asked to read a dense passage independently and write several answers in a row."

Her response was not to lower the intellectual demand. She kept the topic and the question the rest of the class was working on, then redesigned how the student reached it. "I'd break the text into shorter sections, introduce a few essential words before reading, and give the student a chance to explain an answer aloud before finding the sentence that supported it."

The student was still interpreting the text and using evidence. What changed was the pathway. "The redesign gave me a clearer view of what they understood and what I still needed to teach."

That distinction matters for anyone searching for reading intervention resources: scaffolding the access to a task is not the same as removing the task.

What Curriculum Pages Leave Out

Klumpers sees a gap between what teachers and families need and what most online curriculum resource pages provide. "They need to know what to do when the learner gets stuck," she said. "A grade label helps you find a resource, but it tells you very little about how to use it with the student sitting in front of you."

She described the shared question at the kitchen table and the small-group table alike: "We've read the paragraph twice. What should I try next?"

Her answer is a short teaching note built into the material. It might suggest modeling the first answer, asking the student to retell a paragraph in their own words, or pointing them back to the sentence that holds a clue. Just as important is what the adult should look for afterward. "Can the student explain the idea independently on the next paragraph? That's the kind of guidance I aim to build into Heritage Learning Press K-12 materials."

For families navigating special education support, that kind of embedded guidance can be the difference between a resource that sits unused and one that gets used well.

Check the Task Before Changing the Level

Asked what people decide too quickly, Klumpers pointed to the leap toward easier material before diagnosing which part of the task is hard. "It's easy to decide that a student needs easier material before checking which part of the task is difficult," she said.

Her suggested first step is a short, structured sample. "Listen to the student read a few sentences. Then read a comparable section aloud and ask them to explain what happened. If they can explain it orally, see what changes when you ask them to put the same idea in writing." Each step, she noted, gives a different piece of information about where support might help.

She also asks adults to check the goal of the assignment. "If the goal is decoding, the student needs practice reading words with the sound-spelling pattern being taught. If the goal is drawing an inference from a history passage, reading the text aloud may give the student a fair chance to practice making an inference and pointing to evidence."

Knowing the goal, she said, helps you choose a resource that makes the intended skill visible. That principle connects to broader guidance on evidence-based reading instruction, where matching practice to the skill being taught is central.

Practical Takeaways for Teachers and Families

Klumpers's approach translates into a few concrete moves for anyone choosing reading or special education materials:

• Preserve the thinking task. Keep the question and topic, then adjust text length, vocabulary pre-teaching, or response mode.
• Look for teaching notes. A resource that tells you what to try when a student is stuck is more useful than one that only supplies content.
• Sample before you switch levels. Listen to reading, read aloud, and compare oral and written responses to locate the actual difficulty.
• Name the goal first. Decoding practice and inference practice call for different supports.

For Klumpers, the through-line is observation. The right material begins with watching how a student approaches the work, not with the label on the cover.