Bridging the Gap: Supporting Struggling Readers at KS3 and Beyond

By Abigail Steel

Bridging the Gap: Supporting Struggling Readers at KS3 and Beyond is a practical professional guide for teachers, literacy leads, SENCOs, teaching assistants and school leaders supporting older pupils who are not yet able to read age-appropriate texts confidently and independently.

Some pupils still need explicit phonics teaching. Others can decode many words accurately but remain slow, hesitant or heavily dependent on support. Some struggle with vocabulary, comprehension, stamina or confidence. Many experience several of these difficulties at once.

This book explores that important space between developing word-reading skills and becoming an increasingly fluent, thoughtful and independent reader.

Rather than lowering the destination, Bridging the Gap shows how teachers can make ambitious, age-respectful reading more accessible through carefully chosen texts, purposeful scaffolding and responsive teaching.

Inside, you will explore how to:

identify what is actually getting in the way of successful readingdistinguish between decoding, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension needschoose age-respectful texts without reducing intellectual challengedevelop fluency through meaningful connected textteach vocabulary in contextsupport comprehension while keeping the text centralbuild confidence, stamina and reading identitystructure effective reading-support lessonsreview progress and reduce support as independence growsdesign sustainable reading-support pathways across KS3 and beyond

The book also includes reflection points, case studies, worked examples, practical tools, model pathways, implementation prompts and a research map to help schools move from understanding the problem to improving provision.

Bridging the Gap is a natural companion to Abigail Steel's Leading KS3+ Phonics, but it can also be read and used independently.

The aim of reading support is not to make difficult reading permanently easier. It is to give pupils the support they need until they can do more of the reading for themselves.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HMP7SSQB
• ISBN13: 9798161611289
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.3" x 7.0"