Call for Action: Supporting the Needs of Struggling Adolescent Readers (original) (raw)
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Research suggests that additional reading instruction is necessary to support struggling adolescent readers. In addition to time allocated for reading and access to appropriately leveled texts, many students need teacher support in learning and implementing a range of reading strategies. As a high school English teacher and a middle school Social Studies teacher pursuing advanced degrees in literacy, Allison and Carolyn were familiar with current trends in literacy research but lacked practical experience in helping struggling adolescent readers. It was not until working with a struggling reader in a one-on-one tutoring setting that they began to understand how to identify areas of weakness and develop differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all learners in their classrooms. Following a discussion of Allison’s and Carolyn’s stories, the authors offer suggestions for transferability to the larger classroom setting.
A student-centered classroom for struggling readers transforms a teacher's identity and pedagogy
The purpose of this study was to explore how critical pedagogy, culturally relevant curriculum, and student centered instruction impacted student engagement in reading for struggling high school readers, including first-and second-generation immigrants. The researcher/practitioner (r/p) chose to highlight Latinas in the study to understand the connection between reading engagement and culture. The study provided the r/p with opportunity to reflect on ways to include critical pedagogy to improve her practice. The r/p used action research and cycles of inquiry to reflect, diagnose, and plan reading instruction based on tenants of critical pedagogy. The data sources included student surveys and journals, student observations, and closing interviews. Themes related to student engagement, culturally relevant text and inclusion of student voice are presented, as well as the role of culture and identity in engaging struggling readers. iv Important findings include the use of student voice in generating themes of interest, student selection of reading material, and supportive and inclusive learning environments. The use of literature circles as a structure to help students participate in discussions and engage in dialogue, critical thinking, and questioning are also discussed. The study advocates for teachers working with diverse populations to provide culturally relevant curriculum and caring environments for their students. This requires that teachers reposition themselves as learners in the classroom. Specific literacy strategies such as high interest text, inclusion of the primary language, critical reading, pop culture, and technology are used to assist struggling readers in improving their attitude and efficacy in reading. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the 14 students at Springville High School who participated in this study:
Are Avid Readers Lurking in Your Language Arts Classroom? Myths of the Avid Adolescent Reader
Reading Horizons, 2010
This article describes a pilot study conducted with 10 identified avid adolescent readers who completed the Adolescent Motivation to Read Profile (AMRP) (Pitcher, Albright, DeLaney, Walker, Seunarienesingh, & Moggie, 2007) that includes both a survey to determine students' self-concept and value of reading and an interview that sheds light on what motivates them to read as well as yields specific information about their reading habits. The researchers use this data to challenge current myths regarding avid readers and to suggest that teachers look more deeply at the types of literacy experiences they offer in their classroom in order to draw these readers into their classes and enhance in-school reading.
Struggling Adolescent Readers: A Cultural Construction
Understanding literacy development: A global view, 2006
Despite good intentions, reform-minded schools in the United States are coming to grips with the possibility that traditional school culture is making struggling readers out of some youth, especially the ones who have turned their backs on a version of reading and writing commonly referred to as academic literacy. This chapter focuses: (1) assumptions underlying the research on struggling readers; (2) various approaches to thinking about school culture and struggling readers; and (3) teaching for critical awareness using new media and interactive communications technology.
Engaging Struggling Adolescent Readers to Improve Reading Skills
Reading Research Quarterly
This study examined the efficacy of a supplemental, multicomponent adolescent reading intervention for middle school students who scored below proficient on a state literacy assessment. Using a within-school experimental design, we randomly assigned 483 students in grades 6 to 8 to a business-as-usual control condition or to the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI), a supplemental reading program involving instruction to support word reading skills, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, and peer talk to promote reading engagement and comprehension. We assessed behavioral engagement by measuring how much of the STARI curriculum activities students completed during an academic school year and we collected intervention teachers' ratings of their students' reading engagement. STARI students outperformed control students on measures of word recognition (d = .20), efficiency of basic reading comprehension (d = .21), and morphological awareness (d = .18). Reading engagement in its behavioral form, as measured by students' participation and involvement in the STARI curriculum, mediated the treatment effects on each of these three posttest outcomes. Intervention teachers' ratings of their students' emotional and cognitive engagement explained unique variance on reading posttests. Findings from this study support the hypothesis that (a) behavioral engagement fosters struggling adolescents' reading growth and (b) teachers' perceptions of their students' emotional and cognitive engagement further contribute to reading competence.
"When you read, there should be a little voice in your head like a storyteller is saying it. If it's not there, then you're just lookin' at the words." LaKeisha, a ninth grader, describing the new way she thinks about reading "I understand the book more now. Before, it didn't make sense to me. I read differently now… Now I read in between the lines. I basically get into the story, into the heart of itlike reading deeper into what it is saying." Jason, a ninth grader, describing how he now reads his history book Recently, federal and state policy mandates have legislated particular instructional methodologies and allocated professional development dollars with the aim of assuring that American children learn to read independently by grade three. While strengthening early literacy instruction is certainly a worthy goal, the most recent NAEP results suggest that attaining advanced literacy is and has been the greater problem facing American students (see, for example, Gee, 1999). Many politicians, educators, and members of the public seem to believe that this investment in early literacy will pay automatic dividends in accelerated literacy learning, enabling children to make the leap from learning to read to reading to learn, and even further, to reading to solve complex and specific problems, with ease. We know from our work in middle and high school classrooms that this is just not so.