Appendix B: a Review of the Literature on Adolescent Literacy

Appendix B: A Review of the Literature On Adolescent Literacy

Title

Authors/ Editors

Date

Sponsor (if any)

Adolescents and Literacy: Reading for the 21st Century / Michael Kamil / 2003 / Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington D. C.
Adolescent Literacy, A Position Statement / David W. Moore, Thomas W. Bean, Deanna Birdyshaw, & James A. Rucik / 1999 / International Reading Association
Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice / Julie Meltzer with Nancy C. Smith and Holly Clark / 2001 / Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University (LAB)
Adolescent Literacy Fact Sheet / No author listed / 2004 / Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington D. C.
Beating the Odds: Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well / Judith Langer / 2000 / National Research Center on English Leaning and Achievement (CELA) at University at Albany,
Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground / Stephanie Robinson, Amy Stempel, Isis McCree / 2005 / The Education Trust
Key Points on Grouping: A Synthesis of the Research / Betty Shoemaker / 2006 / Prepared for Springfield Public Schools, Oregon
Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well: Six Features of Effective Instruction / Judith Langer, Elizabeth Close, Janet Angelis, and Paula Preller / 2001 / National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) at University at Albany, State University of New York
Improving Literacy Understanding Through Classroom Conversation / Judith Langer and Elizabeth Close / No date listed / National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) at University at Albany, State University of New York
Literacy Coaching: A Synthesis of the Literature in Literacy Coaches / Paul Weill and Diane Bova / 2006 / Prepared for Springfield Public Schools, Oregon
Patterns of Reading Practice / Terrance D. Paul / 1996 / Institute for Academic Excellence
Reading for Understanding: Toward an R & D Program in Reading Comprehension / Catherine E. Snow / 2002 / Rand Reading Study Group for the Office of Education Research and Improvement
Reading Next: a Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy / Gina Biancarosa and Catherine Snow / 2004 / The Alliance for Excellent Education for the Carnegie Corporation of New York

Title

Authors/ Editors

Date

Sponsor (if any)

Research to Practice Brief: Never to Late: Approaches to Reading Instruction for Secondary Students with Disabilities / Ann T. Clapper, Christine D. Breme and Mera M. Kachgal / 2002 / National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) the College of Education, University of Minnesota
Supporting Young Adolescents’ Literacy Learning: A Position Paper jointly adopted by the International Reading Association and the National Middle School Association / 2002 / International Reading Association and the National Middle School Association
What Reading Does for the Mind / Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E. Stanovich / 1998 / For the American Federation of Teachers in American Educator

Appendix C: Key Points Documents

This appendix contains the following Key Points documents:

· Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well: Six Features of Effective Instruction

· Reading Next A Vision For Action And Research In Middle And High School Literacy, A Report To The Carnegie Corporation Of New York

· Key Points from Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students

· The International Reading Association’s Position Statement on Adolescent Literacy

· Key Points from Supporting Young Adolescents' Literacy Learning: A Position Paper jointly adopted by the International Reading Association and National Middle School Association

· Key Points From Summary Of Findings Across Grouping Structures

· Key Points from Adolescent Literacy Resources: Linking Research and Practice

· Key points from Patterns of Reading Practice

· Key Points from Achieving State and National Literacy Goals, a Long Uphill Road A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York

· Key Points from Literacy, Adolescents, and Reading for the 21st Century Alliance for Excellent Education

· Key Points on Motivation

· Research On Tutoring

Key Points From Guidelines For Teaching Middle And High School StudentsTo Read And Write Well: Six Features Of Effective Instruction

The results of this research are reported in a set of research reports and case studies including, Beating the Odds: Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well. Excellence in English in Middle and High School: How Teachers’ Professional Lives Support Student Achievement examines the professional contexts that contribute to teachers’ success.[1]

1. STUDENTS LEARN SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE IN MULTIPLE LESSON TYPES.

Effective teachers teach skills in “separated,” “simulated,” and “integrated” contexts. Instead of primarily depending on one approach to teach an important skill such as using quotation marks, teachers artfully weave the skill into a variety of lesson types. They might teach it directly at one point—separated—as a lesson in itself. At other points they find ways to teach it in context—simulated—perhaps by examining how quotation marks are used in a literary text they are reading. Teachers find a variety of creative and purposeful ways for students to integrate the skill within the context of broader activities. Colleagues teaching in typical schools often rely primarily on one lesson type. They tend to teach primarily out of context (separated) or primarily within the context of larger activities (simulated or integrated), but they fail to use all three lesson types.

2. TEACHERS INTEGRATE TEST PREPARATION INTO INSTRUCTION.

Effective English teachers integrate test preparation into their instruction, inundating their classrooms with activities that target the skills, strategies, and knowledge students need in order to be successful on high-stakes tests. Teachers and administrators in effective programs dissect the test to understand the knowledge and skills needed to succeed not only on tests, but also in other academic and real-life situations. Over time, through writing and reading activities and instruction, such test preparation occurs in a framework of skills identified through reformulation of the curriculum in response to assessment demands. In contrast, teachers in typical schools confine their test preparation – if any – to a few weeks before the test. This instruction focuses more on how to take the test rather than on how, over time, to actually gain and retain the knowledge and skills that underlie what is being tested.

3. TEACHERS MAKE CONNECTIONS ACROSS INSTRUCTION, CURRICULUM AND LIFE.

In effective programs, teachers interweave skills and knowledge across lessons as well as beyond individual units so that what students learn transcends instructional boundaries and connects to what they have learned and are learning and doing at other times in English class, in other classes, and in life. For example, high school students engaged in an interdisciplinary unit on “Motion” study frostbite and Mt. Everest at the same time that they read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” They are constantly asked to think, discuss, and write about connections concerning the physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of motion. They write about the hero’s mental journey as well as his physical journey. They discuss the relationship between movement and change and relate this relationship to any work on movement and change they do in physics, math, social studies, or Project Adventure—as well as in English class. In typical schools, connections within the discipline of language arts, with other disciplines, or with students’ daily lives are often not made overt.

4. STUDENTS LEARN STRATEGIES FOR WAYS TO DO THE WORK.

Students in effective programs are taught intentional ways of thinking and doing. They learn approaches to focus and structure their thinking as well as strategies for completing tasks. For example, middle school students might be asked to reflect on their “completed” research papers and evaluate how well they have researched and planned them. This reflection helps students see not just whether they have done the assignment as instructed but whether they have actually done enough. Did they spend enough time researching, thinking, and reviewing their projects? How might they better approach their next assignments? In this and other ways, students learn procedural and meta-cognitive strategies that help them monitor their own progress and anticipate and cope successfully with new situations and demands. In contrast, typical programs tend to limit their instruction to a particular topic or skill and do not explicitly teach students how to plan, organize, and reflect on their work.

5. STUDENTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE CREATIVE THINKERS.

Students in effective programs meet the learning goals of particular lessons and units and are then encouraged to explore further—to find ways to gain deeper understanding of the topic by using their new knowledge as a springboard from which to probe ideas and expand beyond them. Even after meeting targeted achievement goals, students are encouraged to generate their own ideas and expand their literary understandings and frameworks. They are expected to be generative thinkers – to know names, definitions, and facts, and then to explore the additional roads that the new knowledge suggests. In typical schools, teachers tend to move on to a new topic once material is “covered.”

6. CLASSROOMS FOSTER COGNITIVE COLLABORATION.

Effective English teachers know that language learning is a social activity involving the exchange, discussion and investigation of ideas. In their classes, understandings and capacities grow and deepen through thoughtful interactions with others, both present and imagined. Students regularly engage in collaborative and active group learning. Students share ideas with each other, respond to one another’s thoughts, and respectfully challenge those ideas they feel need to be tested. This contributes to the intellectual tenor of the class. In typical classrooms, students work in groups cooperatively, but they are not asked to really think things through together or to intellectually challenge each other.

The English teachers in the effective programs draw from a broad scope of instructional approaches. They are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and dedicated, and their students—most of whom live in poorer, urban neighborhoods— are active and engaged and “minds on” in class. These students are beating the odds, as evidenced by their school work and their test scores on statewide exams. While the more typical schools in the study want students to do better, and take action towards that goal, they lack the systematic, organized, highly informed and participatory features that pervade the more successful schools. Sometimes one or some of the features described above are in place, but not all. However, when all the features permeate the educational environment, they add the comprehensiveness that English programs require to make a difference in helping all students attain the language and literacy skills they need.

Key Points From Reading Next A Vision For Action And Research In Middle And High School LiteracyA Report To The Carnegie Corporation Of New York

The Alliance for Excellent Education

To help address the problem of struggling adolescent readers, a panel of five nationally known and respected educational researchers met in spring 2004 with representatives of Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Alliance for Excellent Education to draw up a set of recommendations for how to meet the needs of our eight million struggling readers while simultaneously envisioning a way to propel the field forward. The resulting paper was reviewed and augmented by the Adolescent Literacy Funders Forum (ALFF) at its 2004 annual meeting. Although this report originally was targeted to the funding community, it offers information that will also prove invaluable to others, including researchers, policymakers, and educators.

This report delineates fifteen elements aimed at improving middle and high school literacy achievement right now. These fifteen elements are:

1. Direct, explicit comprehension instruction, which is instruction in the strategies and processes that proficient readers use to understand what they read, including summarizing, keeping track of one’s own understanding, and a host of other practices;

2. Effective instructional principles embedded in content, including language arts teachers using content-area texts and content-area teachers providing instruction and practice in reading and writing skills specific to their subject area;

3. Motivation and self-directed learning, which includes building motivation to read and learn and providing students with the instruction and supports needed for independent learning tasks they will face after graduation;

4. Text-based collaborative learning, which involves students interacting with one another around a variety of texts;

5. Strategic tutoring, which provides students with intense individualized reading, writing, and content instruction as needed;

6. Diverse texts, which are texts at a variety of difficulty levels and on a variety of topics;

7. Intensive writing, including instruction connected to the kinds of writing tasks students will have to perform well in high school and beyond;

8. A technology component, which includes technology as a tool for and a topic of literacy instruction;

9. Ongoing formative assessment of students, which is informal, often daily assessment of how students are progressing under current instructional practices;

10. Extended time for literacy, which includes approximately two to four hours of literacy instruction and practice that takes place in language arts and content-area classes;

11. Professional development that is both long term and ongoing;

12. Ongoing summative assessment of students and programs, which is more formal and provides data that are reported for accountability and research purposes;

13. Teacher teams, which are interdisciplinary teams that meet regularly to discuss students and align instruction;

14. Leadership, which can come from principals and teachers who have a solid understanding of how to teach reading and writing to the full array of students present in schools; and

15. A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program, which is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental and may even coordinate with out-of-school organizations and the local community.

Since implementation of only one or two of these elements is unlikely to improve the achievement of many students, this report recommends that practitioners and program designers flexibly try out various combinations in search of the most effective overall program. Furthermore, any combination should include three specific elements: professional development, formative assessment, and summative assessment. No literacy program targeted at older readers is likely to cause significant improvements without these elements, because of their importance to ensuring instructional effectiveness and measuring effects. However, they should not be seen as sufficient in themselves to address the wide range of problems experienced by older struggling readers; rather, they act as a foundation for instructional innovations.