Last week, we kicked off our deep dive into the Adolescent Literacy Wheel (a key piece of our Future of Adolescent Literacy Vision Paper) with a look at infrastructure — the systems and structures that make literacy transformation sustainable across an entire school. If you missed it, catch up here.
This week, we're building on that foundation with a topic that sits at the heart of everything we do at Storyshares — and one that is too often misunderstood.
This week, we're talking about accessibility, with contributions from Ethan Pierce, founder of Adaptive Reader.
Accessibility Is Where Literacy Begins
A student who cannot access the text cannot learn from it.
That sounds obvious. And yet, middle and high school classrooms across the country are built around texts and materials that a significant portion of students cannot meaningfully engage with — because of reading level, home language, learning difference, or format. We ask students to adapt to the system, rather than building a system that adapts to them.
Every student deserves text they can access. Accessibility isn't a special accommodation for a subset of students. It is the precondition for literacy instruction. When we design for the full range of how adolescents actually read — across home languages, learning differences, and reading levels — we stop treating access as an afterthought and start treating it as the foundation.
Access and Rigor Are Not in Opposition
This is where the narrative breaks down — and where we need to push back hardest.
There is a growing assumption in education that adapting text for struggling readers means lowering the bar. That translation is a workaround, or that audio editions let students off the hook. That accessible formats are somehow in conflict with high expectations.
They are not.
Adapting how a student accesses a text is not the same as lowering expectations for what they can think, understand, or do with it. A striving reader who engages with a complex idea through a paraphrased edition is doing rigorous intellectual work. A student who accesses a story in their home language is not taking a shortcut — they are being given a legitimate entry point into a conversation they deserve to be part of.
Accessible editions are the bridge — not the destination. The goal was never the format. The goal is the thinking, the learning, the meaning-making. Accessibility is how we make sure every student gets there.
Making Complex Texts Accessible to Older Striving Readers
So what does accessibility actually look like in practice? It looks like options — real, thoughtful, embedded options that are woven into instruction itself rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
- Offer texts in students' home languages — or with bilingual support. Accessibility is not only about reading level; it is also about linguistic entry. Translation is not a workaround; it is foundational support. A student who can access ideas in their home language is a student who can participate fully in the academic conversation.
- Provide paraphrased editions to build background knowledge. With the right scaffold, a striving reader can engage with complex texts and begin to internalize the skills needed to access the original.
- Offer multiple formats and let the student choose. Audio editions, large print, phonics-scaffolded text, digital formats — when students can select what works for them, reading becomes a practice. Something they do, not something that's done for them.
A Note for Teachers: Try It Today
Before your next unit, pause and ask one question: is the anchor text available in my students' home languages? As an audio edition? In a phonics-scaffolded or large print format?
Start with the text. Then ask what formats it comes in.
That single question — asked consistently, across every unit — is what it looks like to build a culture of accessibility. Not as an afterthought. As a starting point.
Keep the Conversation Going
This week, we're going deeper into accessibility on the Adolescent Literacy Podcast with Ethan Pierce from Adaptive Reader — an organization working at the intersection of access, technology, and literacy.
In Episode 4: Access Is Not the Enemy of Rigor, we dig into what accessibility really means in the context of reading, why the current conversation around access vs. rigor is missing the mark, and what it looks like to build classrooms and systems where every student can genuinely participate.
The Future of Adolescent Literacy Is Accessible
Infrastructure gives us the system. Accessibility gives every student a way in.
When schools design intentionally for the full range of how students read — and stop treating access as a separate conversation from rigor — something shifts. Students who were previously on the outside of the learning looking in become active participants. Striving readers build skills and confidence simultaneously. Teachers stop managing workarounds and start teaching.
That is what accessible literacy instruction makes possible. And it doesn't happen by accident — it happens when schools build the infrastructure to support it and the commitment to make access a non-negotiable for every student, every text, every day.
Next week, we're continuing the series with another critical piece of the Adolescent Literacy Wheel: Efficacy and Data. Stay tuned.
Download the 2026 Adolescent Literacy Vision Paper here.