I’d like to tell you the story of the student who taught me a really important lesson that I now refer to as The Train Track analogy.

I started working with Andrew when he was in 3rd grade. This was 2016, and I was very, very pregnant with my second child. The first time we met, there was an immediate connection. He was super smart, very dedicated to his growth, and such a delight to spend time with. We made each other laugh a lot.

I assessed Andrew’s independent decoding and encoding skills, talked extensively with his mom, looked at school records, and analyzed a recent writing sample. Having established a baseline of significant gaps in his foundational reading skills due to his severe dyslexia, I wrote my intervention plan. It addressed decoding and encoding gaps with explicit instruction through the Wilson Reading System®, which his baseline assessments clearly showed he needed.

We dove into three-hour weekly sessions, plugging away at the scope and sequence of skills he needed in order to fill in those foundational gaps. With his significant dyslexia, each skill required multiple exposures, applied practice with immediate feedback, encouragement, incentives, and creativity to address trouble spots.

Andrew worked through each step of the Wilson Reading System over the course of four years. It was grueling, he was a rockstar, and his accuracy with both decoding and encoding became consistent. His entire team was thrilled.

However, his fluency was still very low, meaning it took him a long time to decode each word. He knew how to be accurate, but still struggled with automaticity, which negatively impacted his ability to understand what he was reading.

If you don’t know what I mean by this, try it: Read a passage about something you don’t have much background knowledge on at a rate of about 40–50 words per minute. Set a timer on your phone to track it. Pay attention to your ability to understand what you are reading when the pace is slow. Now read the same passage closer to 100 words per minute. Can you feel the difference?

It’s called automaticity. Automaticity of reading allows your brain to save cognitive energy for understanding and analyzing what you read—moving you up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Not only was Andrew’s fluency a struggle, his written expression was disorganized, labor-intensive, and grammatically incorrect. It was not easy to understand what he was trying to express. At this point, he was in middle school, expected to craft successful multi-paragraph essays. He had so much to say, and it was apparent some additional instruction was needed.

At this point, I stepped out of teaching to lead Redwood Literacy full-time, and Andrew transitioned to the caseload of a colleague. It was a tear-filled goodbye, as the journey we had been on together was powerful. It never gets old, seeing someone who thought they couldn’t do something accomplish it with tons of hard work, grit, and the right guidance.

As his new instructor and I tackled the next step of his intervention plan, we focused our efforts on a combination of Wide Reading Units, written expression, and assistive technology tools through Writing Our World™. This plan focused on building oral reading fluency and background knowledge through continuous reading, or wide reading, instead of repeated reading.

If you’re curious about understanding the difference between these approaches, check out this research summary by Dr. Elizabeth Norton at Northwestern University.

As Andrew and his new instructor began the second part of his intervention journey, I began to reflect on my mistake as a practitioner. I am constantly learning and growing as a professional, just like the students I work with and the children I am raising in my own home. Modeling the “know better/do better” mindset on a daily basis is one of the most powerful examples we can set for the next generation.

What was the mistake?

Did I regret having Andrew work through all 12 steps of the Wilson Reading System? No. He needed it.
Did I regret recommending that Andrew work through the 49 steps of the Writing Our World™ scope and sequence? No. He needed that too.
What about the wide reading units? He needed those.
What about exposure and direct instruction around using assistive technology tools to reduce the cognitive load as the rigor of reading and writing expectations increased in middle school? 100% he needed that.

I didn’t regret any of the individual recommendations. They had all proven to be very helpful to him.

What I regret is that during the early years of instruction I focused entirely on remediation but neglected to incorporate the assistive technology tools he needed—I thought I could wait until he built up his fluency.

Looking back, I wish I would have recommended right away, when he was in 3rd grade, that we start tackling both sides of what I call The Train Track.

🚂 The Train Track Analogy

The Train Track is an analogy I now use every day while leading our teams in creating best-in-class educational support plans for neurodivergent students. In order to foster thriving, confident students, we must give them both sides of the track.

Track #1: Targeted Skill Building

This is the nitty gritty explicit instruction. It begins with getting a clear baseline on a student’s foundational reading, writing, and math skills—whatever instructors identify as an area of struggle—then building an individualized intervention plan embedded with progress monitoring and benchmarking.

It’s essential not only that students are getting intervention, but that they’re getting the right intervention: explicit, research-based instruction that follows a clear scope and sequence and is still flexible enough to be molded to each student’s unique profile.

Relationship-building is just as essential here. A qualified, empathetic, creative instructor, supported by a team of thought partners, brings the curriculum to life and creates a safe space for growth.

Track #2: Access to Grade-Level Content

Students also need a way to access content at their cognitive level while they’re still building foundational skills. This is where assistive technology, AI tools, and background knowledge building come in. If students only receive remediation without access support, they fall behind in vocabulary, comprehension, and content knowledge—widening the gap.

This is the danger of the Matthew Effect: the rich get richer, and the struggling fall further behind. But when both tracks are in motion, students are empowered to catch up and even surge ahead.

The Rails Between the Tracks: Evidence-Based Curriculum

But here’s what connects these two tracks and allows the train to run: curriculum.

No matter how amazing a teacher is, if you don’t have a curriculum with a structured scope and sequence of skills, built-in progress monitoring, and spiralized review, a neurodivergent child will not make the progress they need.

The right curricula are the rails between the tracks—connecting skill-building to accessibility in a cohesive, personalized way. They should evolve with the student. As children grow, they graduate from needing one kind of curriculum to another. What works in 3rd grade might not work in 6th.

No curriculum is perfect, and no two students are the same. That’s why we always recommend viewing curricula as a robust toolbelt—not a one-size-fits-all solution. The best educators know when to switch tools, when to lean in, and when to try something new. At Redwood, we constantly ask: “What does this student need right now to keep moving forward?”

So Where is Andrew Now?

He’s nearing the end of his high school journey and applying to prestigious schools around the country. I just attended his most recent IEP meeting and was floored by what I heard:

• 90th percentile for reading and writing on the SAT
• 75th percentile for reading comprehension
• 61st percentile for written expression

He is disciplined, independent, fierce, kind, and ambitious. I have no doubt he is going to accomplish anything he sets his mind to. He already has.

Nice try, Matthew.

Want support designing a Train Track approach for your child?
At Redwood, we build custom educational support plans that combine targeted intervention, access tools, and evidence-based curricula tailored to your child’s learning profile. Contact us anytime at www.redwoodliteracy.com to get started.

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