Curriculum & Instruction
We now know a lot about effective adolescent literacy instruction, including how to identify at-risk children and how to intervene effectively. The articles in this section offer information on what effective instruction looks like — in the classroom, throughout a school, and district-wide.
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A Closer Look: Closing the Performance Gap
The performance gap — what students are expected to do versus what they can do — is compounded each year a child falls short of acquiring expected skills. As a result, underachieving high school students are at great risk for academic failure, discouragement, and disengagement. This article offers a framework to support adolescent literacy that ties improved student outcomes to an instructional core and an infrastructure core.
A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners in Secondary School
Copyright 2007 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Used with permission. Olson, C.B. and Land, R. (2007). A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners in Secondary School. Research in the Teaching of English, 41(3), http://www.ncte.org/pubs/journals/rte/articles/126617.htm.
Cognitive strategies, such as predicting, summarizing, and reflecting-strategies used by experienced readers and writers, are vital to the development of academic literacy, but these strategies are too rarely taught explicitly, especially to English Language Learners (ELLs). This study reports the results of a California Writing Project study in which 55 teachers implemented a cognitive-strategies approach to reading and writing instruction for their ELL secondary students over an eight-year period and includes a detailed description of a teacher's cognitive strategies "tool kit."
A Critical Analysis of Eight Informal Reading Inventories
There are a number of current informal reading inventories. Each has its strengths and limitations and unique characteristics, which should be considered in order to best fit a teacher's needs.
A Description of Foundation Skills Interventions for Struggling Middle-Grade Readers in Four Urban Northeast and Islands Region School Districts
Zorfass, J., & Urbano, C. (2008). A description of foundation skills interventions for struggling middle-grade readers in four urban Northeast and Islands Region school districts (Issues & Answers Report, REL 2008-No. 042). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs.
This study, conducted during the 2006/07 academic year, describes how four midsize urban school districts in the Northeast and Islands Region-Worcester, Massachusetts; Nashua, New Hampshire; Yonkers, New York; and Providence, Rhode Island-conducted foundation skills assessments and providing foundation skills programs to struggling middle-grade readers.
The study identifies six factors that, according to the district representatives interviewed, can promote or hinder program implementation:
- Building on the federal Reading First initiative by expanding selected aspects of the program to upper elementary and middle grades,
- Using Response-to-Intervention and three-tier reading models,
- Fostering collaboration among relevant departments and programs,
- Recruiting highly qualified teachers in relevant areas,
- Solving problems of time and scheduling, and
- Ensuring that programs are carried out as designed.
A Theory of Adolescent Reading: A Simple View of a Complex Process
How do adolescents move from reading words to applying knowledge learned from a text? See the adolescent reading model and the Strategic Intervention Model (SIM) clearly illustrated.
Academic Language: Everyone's "Second" Language
Being able to speak English fluently does not guarantee that a student will be able to use language effectively in academic settings. Fluency must be combined with higher order thinking skills to create an "academic language," which allows students to effectively present their ideas in a way that others will take seriously. The author, an ELL teacher, describes her use of "protocols" (a cheat sheet of sentence starters) to build students' cognitive academic language proficiency.
Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents
Torgesen, J. K., Houston, D. D., Rissman, L. M., Decker, S. M., Roberts, G., Vaughn, S., Wexler, J. Francis, D. J, Rivera, M. O., Lesaux, N. (2007). Academic literacy instruction for adolescents: A guidance document from the Center on Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.
Created by the Center on Instruction to assist literacy specialists in their work, this report makes research-based recommendations for improving academic literacy instruction in 1) content areas, 2) for English language learners, and 3) in classes with struggling readers. The report also includes advice and comments from eight literacy experts.
Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice
Meltzer, J., Cook Smith, N. and Clark, H. Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice. Retrieved Oct. 22, 2007, from http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/adlit/alr_lrp.pdf.
This book from the Education Alliance at Brown University reviews relevant research from the past 20 years and describes the implications for instruction, curriculum, school structure, professional development, and assessment.
Adolescent Literacy: Where We Are Now?
This essay summarizes adolescent literacy interventions and trends, and its relation to dropout rates.
America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future
Kirsch, I., Braun, H., Yamamoto, K., and Sum, A. Copyright ©2007 by Educational Testing Service.
According to America's Perfect Storm, current labor market trends, demographics, and student achievement data are combining to create a "perfect storm" that could inflict lasting damage upon the nation's economy and upon its social fabric, as well. Simply put, if the middle and high schools continue to churn out large numbers of students who lack the ability to read critically, write persuasively, and communicate effectively, then the labor market will soon be flooded with young people who have nothing to offer, and who cannot handle the jobs that are available. "[T]here will be tens of millions more adults," the ETS report concludes, "who lack the education and skills they will need to thrive in the new economy," raising the specter of joblessness and despair on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. If that future is to be avoided, the authors argue, the nation's secondary schools will have to begin immediately to help many more students to reach much higher levels of literacy than ever before.
