Despite their best efforts and persistent interventions, educators know that many older students still struggle to read and understand grade-level texts. A recent study suggests that many older students may be struggling with decoding, a crucial foundational literacy skill where readers identify and understand unknown words by breaking them down and sounding them out. The study by AERDF and ETS identified a “decoding threshold,” revealing that students in grades 3-12 who struggle with decoding also make slower progress in crucial reading skills like vocabulary, sentence