STARI Motivates Middle School Students to Become Skilled Readers!

Your school is invited to participate in a study of the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI), a program loved by both teachers and students. All participating schools will receive the intervention either immediately (2024-25 school year), or after a two-year delay (2026-27).

Participating schools will receive all STARI materials and professional learning opportunities and resources. Schools will also have access to the ETS ReadBasix assessment, free of charge during assigned implementation years.

Interested in participating?

Fill out this form and someone from the STARI team will be in touch with you.

More About STARI

STARI (Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention) is a literature-focused, Tier II intervention designed to accelerate the reading skills of students in grades 6-8 who read two or more years below grade level. Using research-based practices and highly engaging texts, STARI addresses gaps in fluency, decoding, reading stamina, and reading comprehension. Most importantly, with the highest ESSA rating for evidence of effectiveness, STARI works!

STARI is a complete, year-long, Tier 2 curriculum. STARI consists of three “Series” of materials, roughly aligned with the three middle school grades. Each series consists of three units. Each unit includes student workbooks and fluency passages; teacher lesson plans, slides, and assessment guides; and novels and nonfiction texts.

Why should my school(s) use STARI?

STARI is engaging.

Research has shown that students learn best when they are engaged. STARI builds foundational reading skills in the context of interesting, complex questions about engaging, relevant, age appropriate texts.

STARI is accessible.

STARI texts’ average difficulty is between 500-800 Lexile levels, approximately a third-grade level. Additional supports (such as text introductions) are provided as scaffolds to help students comprehend the texts. However, texts are age-appropriate, and address grade-level skills and standards, so STARI students progress toward meeting grade-level expectations is accelerated while their foundational literacy skills are developed at the same time.

STARI is culturally responsive.

STARI emphasizes instructional engagement and critical thinking. STARI honors students’ ideas and experiences, by explicitly asking them to take a stance toward texts they read, and defend their ideas with evidence from the text. STARI has high expectations for students, even those who have struggled with reading in the past. Many STARI units have a social justice orientation, as they are organized around current, meaningful topics.

Teachers and students love the program.

Teachers love the program because the thorough lesson plans allow them to be successful, even when they have limited training in how to teach reading.

Students love the program because they work with partners, engage in discussion and debate of interesting topics, and read accessible books that genuinely interest them.