Beyond Native Ads: Aligning Campaigns to the Educator Journey
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January 15, 2026
Middle school is a hinge point in education. It’s where students move from learning to read to reading to learn—and where too many quietly fall behind.
Across the country, educators are sounding the alarm about a middle school reading crisis. In my conversations with middle school teachers, the concern is consistent: students arrive in sixth and seventh grade decoding words but struggling to comprehend complex texts, synthesize information, or sustain attention long enough to read deeply. I’ve watched middle school students breeze through a passage aloud—confident, fluent—and then freeze when asked what it actually meant. The words were there. The understanding wasn’t.
The causes are layered: pandemic disruptions, uneven early literacy instruction, widening opportunity gaps, and a digital culture that competes relentlessly for students’ focus. By the time these challenges surface in middle school, they are harder—and more urgent—to address. Teachers feel that pressure daily, often without the time or tools they need to intervene as early as they’d like.
This is where assessment matters. And here’s where it gets complicated.
Traditional assessments often measure compliance and recall more than understanding. A multiple-choice test may tell us whether a student can recognize the “right” answer, but not whether they can explain it, apply it, or connect it to prior knowledge. For struggling readers, this gap is even more pronounced. I hear educators describe students who “test fine” but can’t summarize a paragraph or explain what they just read. They may pass assessments while quietly avoiding the very skills they haven’t mastered.
Educators are increasingly calling for assessment practices that emphasize formative feedback, performance-based tasks, and authentic demonstrations of learning—annotated texts, short written reflections, discussions, and project-based work that reveal how students think, not just what they remember.
Assessment should guide instruction, not simply label outcomes. When used well, it becomes a diagnostic tool that helps teachers intervene earlier and more precisely—especially for students who have learned how to mask reading difficulties through workarounds.
At the same time, schools are grappling with cell phone policies that directly affect literacy and attention. Research continues to affirm what teachers already know: constant access to phones fragments focus, reduces reading stamina, and undermines deep thinking.
This isn’t about nostalgia or resisting technology. It’s about attention—and protecting the conditions students need to build it. Many districts are revisiting cell phone policies with renewed urgency, not to punish students, but to support learning. Clear, consistent expectations help create classrooms where sustained reading, discussion, and reflection can happen again. For middle schoolers still developing executive functioning skills, structure isn’t restrictive—it’s supportive.
Education companies play a critical role in addressing these interconnected challenges. Here’s how they can help:
The middle school years are too important to rush through or overlook. When literacy instruction, assessment practices, and learning environments align with how students actually learn, we don’t just address a crisis—we build a stronger bridge forward.
And that’s work worth slowing down for.
Ready to connect with the institutions that need your expertise most? Explore Agile’s Education Market Intelligence to find the right opportunities today.
Meredith Biesinger is a licensed dyslexia therapist, in addition to being an experienced classroom teacher and K-12 administrator. Meredith also works as a consultant, where she bridges the bridge the gap between K-12 school districts and ed-tech organizations. With a passion for literacy, she is also a professional writer and syndicated author. With a M.Ed in Educational Leadership and a B.S. in English Education and Creative Writing, she has had rich and diverse opportunities to teach students and education professionals in different parts of the country as well as overseas.
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