Why Acceleration Matters More Than Ever
The recent release of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results has highlighted a concerning decline in reading proficiency among U.S. students.
According to Education Week, both 4th and 8th graders experienced a two-point drop in reading scores, continuing a downward trend that predates the COVID-19 pandemic.
This decline is particularly pronounced among already lower-performing students, exacerbating existing educational disparities.
Traditional remediation approaches—slowing instruction down to reteach missed skills—have consistently failed to produce significant gains. Instead, research and best practices point to acceleration as the most effective Tier 1 instructional approach to ensure students can engage with grade-level content while also addressing unfinished learning.
Acceleration is not a program, nor is it reserved for students already excelling.
Acceleration is a Tier 1 instructional approach that ensures all students, regardless of past performance, engage in grade-level content with just-in-time supports that address gaps without delaying access to new learning.
Acceleration means:
✅ Prioritizing Essential Skills – Instead of reteaching entire past-grade curricula, acceleration focuses on the most essential prerequisite skills needed to engage with current grade-level work. Teachers identify and weave in these critical skills as students encounter them in new learning rather than remediating in isolation.
✅ Embedding Targeted Supports – Rather than isolating struggling students in separate interventions, acceleration builds support within Tier 1 instruction. This includes scaffolds such as high-quality texts with embedded vocabulary instruction, strategic questioning to build comprehension, and leveraging structured academic discussions to make meaning of complex ideas.
✅ Using High-Quality, Complex Texts & Tasks – Decades of research have shown that exposure to rich, complex texts and deep tasks is essential for growth. Acceleration ensures that all students engage with rigorous texts and tasks, rather than simplifying materials or relying on below-grade-level content that prevent exposure to the language structures and ideas necessary for proficiency.
✅ Leveraging Student Assets – Acceleration assumes students can learn grade-level material and builds from what they already know, rather than assuming they need to go back before they can move forward. This shifts instructional mindsets away from remediation and toward a strengths-based approach.
How Acceleration Helps Reverse the Decline
Given the significant declines in reading proficiency, schools need immediate, research-backed changes to Tier 1 instruction. Acceleration directly addresses the root causes of stagnation in the following ways:
🔹 Keeps students on track for success – By ensuring all students engage in grade-level content, acceleration prevents them from falling into the “opportunity myth,” where students are given below-grade-level work that locks them out of future success.
🔹 Closes skill gaps in real time – Instead of delaying access to meaningful learning, acceleration provides the right supports as students encounter new material, allowing them to build background knowledge while moving forward.
🔹 Increases engagement and motivation – Struggling readers often disengage when presented with low-level or remedial instruction. Acceleration keeps students engaged by giving them access to challenging, relevant texts that build their confidence and academic identity.
🔹 Strengthens teacher capacity for effective Tier 1 instruction – Implementing acceleration requires strong instructional planning, formative assessment, and strategic use of scaffolding—all best practices that improve teaching for all students, not just those who are behind.
Now Is the Time to Shift to Acceleration
As NAEP scores continue to highlight persistent declines in reading, it is clear that continuing with traditional remediation strategies will only widen gaps and deepen disparities. Acceleration—when embedded as a core component of Tier 1 instruction—offers a proven, research-backed approach to reversing these trends.
Rather than asking, “What skills are students missing?”, educators must shift to asking, “What supports will help students access and master grade-level content now?” That is the mindset shift acceleration brings to the classroom—and the shift that is urgently needed to ensure all students move forward.
Now more than ever, Acceleration is Tier 1.
