An achievement gap and literacy achievement gap persists across U.S. classrooms. Although these gaps are often most visible in standardized assessments revealing lower reading scores among multilingual learners, students with dyslexia, and students from under-resourced communities, underlying these disparities is a deeper issue: the opportunity gap—a systemic inequity in access to effective and evidence-based instruction. 

The term “achievement gap” is used to refer to the persistent disparity in educational and literacy outcomes across U.S. classrooms between groups of students, based on factors such as socioeconomic status and racial and ethnic groups. Alarmingly, a review of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test shows that the gap in reading scores between lower-performing and higher-performing students continues to widen (you can cite the NAEP).  

While the achievement gap puts the onus of poor performance on the students, the “opportunity gap” acknowledges a lack of educational resources and quality instruction impacting the outcomes of students from under-resourced communities, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.  Addressing the opportunity gap requires a shift not only in policy and funding, but in classroom practice. Central to this is structured literacy: a research-backed instructional approach with the potential to accelerate learning for students who are often left behind.

Understanding the Opportunity Gap

We find an “opportunity gap” exists when there is an in the unequal or inequitable distribution of resources and supports that allow for academic success, such as access to qualified teachers, high-quality curricula, early interventions, and ongoing literacy support. While the achievement gap reflects outcomes, the opportunity gap reflects the conditions that create those outcomes.

In literacy education, this gap is especially damaging. Children who do not learn to read by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. For students with dyslexia and multilingual learners, who may already face instructional mismatches in mainstream classrooms, the impact is compounded.

What Is Structured Literacy?

Structured literacy is a systematic and explicit approach to reading instruction grounded in decades of research, referred to as the science of reading. It focuses on teaching the foundational elements of language—phonology, sound-symbol correspondence, syllable types, morphology, syntax, and semantics—in an organized, sequential, and cumulative manner.

Key features of structured literacy include:

  • Explicit instruction: Concepts are taught directly rather than assumed or inferred.
  • Systematic and cumulative sequence: Lessons build on previously taught skills, ensuring students have the necessary scaffolding.
  • Diagnostic teaching: Instruction is responsive to individual student needs and regularly adjusted based on progress monitoring.
  • Multimodalengagement: Students are engaged with hands-on activities relating sounds to letters, and learning activities include listening, speaking, reading, and writing.   to reinforce memory and understanding.

Why Structured Literacy Matters for Multilingual Learners

Multilingual learners (MLLs) often enter school with varying degrees of oral proficiency in English and home languages, and their ability to decode, encode, comprehend, and express themselves in English may lag behind their peers—not due to cognitive deficits, but because of differences in language exposure and instruction.

Structured literacy provides the kind of explicit instruction in oral and written language structures that benefits all learners, but especially MLLs. It demystifies English orthography by explicitly teaching phonemes, graphemes, and word patterns— Moreover, by integrating morphology and syntax, structured literacy helps MLLs understand how English works at both the word and sentence levels.

This approach also aligns with culturally responsive teaching practices when paired with texts that reflect diverse experiences and when teachers affirm and build upon students' home languages and cultural identities.

Supporting Students with Dyslexia

Students with dyslexia face specific challenges in phonological processing, which makes it difficult to decode words, spell, and sometimes comprehend text fluently. For these students, incidental exposure to language is not enough—they require direct instruction that breaks language down into manageable parts. Structured literacy was designed with these learners in mind. It helps them:

  • Develop phonemic awareness through targeted practice.
  • Understand the predictable patterns of English spelling.
  • Build automaticity through repetition and review.
  • Gain confidence in their ability to read and write.

In contrast to balanced literacy approaches that may rely heavily on contextual guessing and whole-language exposure, structured literacy ensures that all students receive the foundational knowledge needed for reading success.

Creating Systems That Sustain Equitable Literacy Instruction

To address the opportunity gap systematically, schools and districts must commit to long-term changes that go beyond adopting a new curriculum. These changes include:

  • Providing ongoing professional development focused on structured literacy and culturally responsive pedagogy.
  • Implementing universal screening and progress monitoring to identify students at risk and intervene early.
  • Engaging families and caregivers as partners in supporting reading development at home.
  • Aligning resources and staffing to ensure students with the highest needs receive the most support.

By investing in teacher capacity and evidence-based instruction, we can begin to create classrooms where all students, regardless of lived experiences or learning profile, have a real chance to succeed.

Closing the Gap—One Classroom at a Time

The achievement gap in literacy will not close until we address the opportunity gap that fuels it. Structured literacy offers a powerful, research-based, inclusive approach to reading instruction for  all learners, but especially multilingual learners, students with dyslexia, and many others who have been taught with disproven methods of literacy instruction. by  Educators, schools, and teacher preparation programs must work together to ensure that the science of reading is the foundation of all  instruction and practice. . Only then will we begin to close the literacy achievement gap and open the door to lifelong opportunity for all learners.

Through its programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders and The Julie Atwood Speech, Language and Literacy Center the MGH Institute of Health Professions equips educators and speech-language pathologists with the knowledge and tools to implement structured literacy practices across learning environments