In classrooms across the country, you'll find students who are striving to keep up—bright, capable, curious learners who stumble when it’s time to read on their own. Many of these striving readers are receiving intervention. The problem? Many of them are getting the wrong kind of support.
Instead of targeting the root cause of their reading difficulties, interventions—especially for students in 3rd grade and up—often focus on comprehension skills and strategies. Foundational decoding gaps often go unnoticed and unaddressed. When that happens, progress stalls, student confidence erodes, and precious instructional time is lost.
Yet it doesn’t have to be this way.
Behind every test score is a student with a story—and a future. That’s why a reading intervention-matching framework grounded in the Simple View of Reading can be powerful. It moves educators beyond guesswork or blanket protocols, helping them pinpoint what each student needs most right now.
The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) tells us that reading comprehension is the product of two key components:
When both are strong, reading comprehension flourishes. If either is weak, the student will struggle.
This insight comes to life in a four-quadrant graph that plots students along two axes: decoding and language comprehension. Each quadrant reflects a different student profile and a different instructional need.
James sits in the upper-right quadrant. He’s got strong decoding and strong comprehension. He reads fluently, expresses himself well, and eagerly engages with complex texts. James doesn’t need intervention—he needs enrichment. Give him high-interest books, chances to write and discuss, and opportunities to grow his vocabulary and critical thinking.
Sofia is in the lower-right quadrant. She reads aloud smoothly, but when asked to explain what she just read, she falters. Sofia needs comprehension-focused intervention, including instruction in close reading strategies, vocabulary-building, and background knowledge to deepen her understanding of texts.
Lily is in the upper-left quadrant. She’s articulate and insightful when someone reads aloud to her, but independent reading is a struggle. She stumbles over words and reads slowly and effortfully—and this impacts her comprehension. Lily hasn’t yet crossed the decoding threshold and needs Structured Literacy intervention that includes explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and decoding. With the right support, her progress can soar.
Noah sits in the lower-left quadrant. Reading has always felt hard. He avoids it and says he hates it. He struggles with decoding and has difficulty following along, even when text is read aloud. Noah may have more complex learning needs or may be developing literacy in English as a new language. He needs Structured Literacy intervention that includes decoding-focused instruction, with deeper comprehension work layered in as he grows.
The Intervention-Matching quadrant model is not designed to label students—it's about illuminating the next step. It reminds us that not all reading difficulties are the same, even when the symptoms appear similar. With the right lens, we can offer the right support.
Central to this framework is the decoding threshold—the point at which a student can decode most words accurately and automatically. Until students cross the decoding threshold, their cognitive energy is consumed by figuring out individual words, leaving little mental bandwidth for comprehension.
In fact, research clearly demonstrates that striving readers who haven’t reached the decoding threshold gain little benefit from comprehension-focused interventions (Wang et al., 2019). Without fluent word recognition, comprehension strategies alone are not effective.
That is why students like Lily and Noah need decoding-focused intervention, grounded in Structured Literacy. This approach is explicit, systematic, and aligned with how the brain learns to read.
By the time students reach secondary school, decoding instruction is often assumed to be a thing of the past. However, many students reading below grade level are misidentified as having comprehension issues, when decoding remains the primary barrier. It is not too late for these students—they simply need decoding support, delivered efficiently, respectfully, and in ways aligned with their age and cognitive strengths.
Reading comprehension is the destination, and decoding is a gateway. When educators pause to ask, “Has this student crossed the decoding threshold?” they can unlock better decisions, well-matched instruction, and brighter outcomes.
The Intervention-Matching framework reminds us that every student can be seen, supported, and strengthened on their reading journey. With the right intervention at the right time, we can help every learner move forward with confidence and independence.