Closing the Gap at Tier 2: How Reading Eggs Supports MTSS in US Schools and Districts

Which students are actually responding to the support layered onto their day, and which aren’t?

That is the question facing district leaders and school principals across the US, who have a bird’s-eye view of dashboards, aggregate scores, trend lines and data points on a daily basis, but can struggle to get to the individual student level.

Failing to answer that question carries a significant systemic weight and – increasingly – a compliance one. Between state literacy reporting requirements and ESSA's evidence standards, districts need to show, not just assume, that at-risk learners are getting the right support at the right time (and that there's a documented record of it).

Rather than taking a wait-and-see approach, a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is designed to catch struggling readers early enough that most can get the support they need “before it snowballs into something complex”, as special education teacher and technology specialist Shira Moskovitz puts it. That early intervention is becoming increasingly important as a growing number of states require MTSS implementation and ESSA places greater emphasis on literacy support.

The framework runs on a three-tier model, and Tier 2 is where the real decisions happen. It’s where intervention groups form, where data starts to drive next steps, and where a school finds out whether a student is ready to step back to Tier 1 or needs to move up to Tier 3.

This article looks at how Reading Eggs, an evidence-based online reading suite for PreK–5th Grade, supports that kind of decision-making at every tier, with a particular focus on Tier 2. For districts weighing where Reading Eggs fits into their evidence requirements, it's worth noting that Reading Eggs holds ESSA Level III certification, based on NWEA MAP® Growth data showing statistically significant reading gains for students completing Reading Eggs lessons. 

The three tiers of MTSS and how Reading Eggs supports each one

TIER 1: Universal instruction

Tier 1 is universal, supporting all learners, in a way that every student receives the same high-quality, explicit core instruction, and for roughly 80–90% of a class, that's enough on its own. This is prevention, not remediation; this is catching gaps before they form through universal screening rather than closing them after the fact.

Reading Eggs, Reading Eggspress and Fast Phonics make up the Reading Eggs suite and can work as supplemental programs at this tier.

Their structured lessons, organized across maps, adhere to a systematic synthetic phonics sequence followed by elements of structured literacy. This approach is aligned with the Science of Reading, moving every student through the same five pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, using pedagogical best practices and structured, explicit instruction.

All three programs in the suite start with a placement test, which places each student at their own level rather than a fixed grade-level entry point. This keeps instruction personalized even in a whole-class setting, and real-time progress monitoring gives teachers a running view of how every student in the class is progressing, not just whether the lessons are being completed.

The 4,000+ eBook library gives every student, not just those needing extra support, reading material matched to their level. And because students can access Reading Eggs at home as well as at school, they have more equitable access to books regardless of the resources available at home.

Lessons, activities, printable worksheets for offline learning – all are mapped to Common Core, TEKS and other state standards across the US.

Tier 2: Targeted support in a real US district

Tier 2 is where schools learn whether their interventions are working.

It’s small-group, targeted support for students who need extra help, delivered a few times a week and layered on top of core instruction. Schools use additional assessment and progress monitoring data at this tier to see how students are responding to targeted support. A student’s response helps determine whether they need more intensive support or are ready to step back, which is why this tier is where the most important decisions get made.

To see what that looks like at scale, rather than just a definition, take Walton County School District in Northwest Florida. Some students need something more focused just to keep pace, while others read well ahead of grade level, and Reading Eggs gives teachers a way to meet both.

At the campus level, Walton County's reading coaches use the Reading Eggs reporting to identify which specific skill is holding an individual student back, cross-check it against what the classroom teacher is already seeing day to day, and assign the Reading Eggs lessons that target it directly. But knowing a gap exists isn't the same as knowing what it is. That's where the specific features of Reading Eggs come in:

• Pinpoints gaps. From individual student lesson performance to end-of-map quiz results, the Reading Eggs suite features a range of reporting types that highlight specific student struggles and inform next steps.

  • For Tier 2 support, the Skills Mastered report is particularly useful. It shows which students passed each skill on their first, second or third attempt – and which students haven’t yet passed. That makes it easy to see exactly where a student is struggling, whether that’s the letter X or compound words. A small-group session has a real target instead of a vague sense that a student needs help with reading.

• Re-teaches it directly. Skills are covered in sequence, phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationships, phonics and decoding, blending and segmenting, sight-word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, with more repetition than a single classroom pass usually allows. A student who hasn't locked in one foundational piece typically struggles with whatever comes after it.

• Matches reading material to the student, not their age. The eBook library includes decodable texts built for both emerging readers and older students still working on foundational gaps, so a Grade 4 student who needs Grade 1-level phonics practice isn't stuck reading Grade 1-level content to get it.

• Corrects mistakes immediately. Feedback happens in the moment, not a week later in a report. A student who repeats a mistake three or four times before anyone catches it has practiced the wrong thing three or four times. It’s a simple reminder that practice doesn’t make perfect – but perfect practice does.

• Builds in small wins. Short activities and achievable goals matter here too, particularly for a student who's already decided they're not a reader.

• Works alongside the teacher, not instead of them. A teacher might explicitly teach a phonics pattern to the whole group, then send a few students to Reading Eggs for guided practice on that same pattern while they work with someone else.

That's Tier 2 in practice: using data to drive decisions. The data tells you whether a student is responding: ready to step back to Tier 1, or in need of Tier 3. Does it work? As Carla Sconiers (Walton County’s Instructional Support Coordinator) explains:

"Each year we are seeing an increase in proficiency for our ELA scores in all of the grade levels who utilise Reading Eggs. We would like to assume that some of that success has come from being able to use Reading Eggs as a support.”

That caution is warranted; literacy gains rarely have a single cause. Even so, Walton County's results are consistent with evidence beyond the district. The research used to secure Reading Eggs' ESSA Level III certification found that students who completed lessons experienced statistically significant improvements in reading outcomes, reinforcing the case for structured, data-informed intervention. 

Tier 3: Intensive support

Tier 3 is the most intensive layer: individualized, often daily, and usually through close collaboration with a reading specialist or learning support teacher rather than in place of one. Only a small number of students, generally under 5%, need this level of support.

While Reading Eggs doesn't replace that specialist relationship, it helps extend it through:

• Real-time, data-driven reports help diagnose skills gaps, whether that's a particular vowel pattern, a blending difficulty, or phonological awareness more broadly, giving a specialist a starting point instead of a blank page.

• Focused lessons can then target exactly those foundational gaps, while frequent progress reports let a specialist or teacher track whether a student is responding rather than waiting for the next report card cycle.

• Printable resources extend that same targeted practice into the time between direct sessions. 

But why do it? The evidence behind a tiered support system

We know how MTSS works, tier by tier. But do we know why it matters? The answer is yes, and it’s a “yes” backed by evidence.

Joseph Torgesen, a longtime reading researcher at Florida State University, has studied early identification and intervention in reading for years, and he found that catching difficulties early does change the outcome.

Paired with a 2025 study from MIT, the findings paint a concerning picture. Most states now require early reading screening, but only 44% of surveyed teachers said their school had a formal process for turning screening results into an actual intervention plan, the researchers found.

In other words, identifying students who need support is only part of the challenge.

Districts need to focus more on turning the data MTSS provides into targeted action.

Reading Eggs earns its place in that gap as the mechanism that turns student performance data into daily practice. The program’s reporting flags which skill a student is missing, so a school doesn't just know a student needs support – they know what to give them the next day.

What's more, short, regular, focused learning sessions, according to the study behind the program, were enough to raise achievement and move the needle on reading skills and benchmark scores.