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.
Sort by: Date Title
Teachers often find the Holocaust to be an overwhelming subject to approach with their students. While the Holocaust offers important lessons to today's students, it can be a difficult to find the appropriate amount of information to share with young learners. This article highlights the importance of the Holocaust in today's classroom, and offers suggestions for integrating historical fiction into the unit of study.
Effective Reading Programs for Middle and High Schools: A Best Evidence Synthesis
Many reading programs claim to boost student performance, but how is that measured? Johns Hopkins University examined more than 200 published studies to create this quick guide to programs.
The Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study: Early Impact and Implementation Findings
While much has been learned about literacy in the elementary grades, less is known about programmatic approaches that help struggling adolescent readers acquire the skills they need to succeed in high school. The Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study tests the effectiveness of two supplemental literacy interventions targeted to ninth-grade readers with reading comprehension skills that are two to four years below grade level. The interventions studied are (1) Reading Apprenticeship for Academic Literacy from WestEd and (2) Xtreme Reading from the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.
Five Areas of Instructional Improvement to Increase Academic Literacy
How can content-area, non-reading-specialist teachers contribute to academic literacy? They can incorporate these five techniques throughout their lessons: (1) provide explicit instruction and supported practice in effective comprehension techniques, (2) increase the amount and quality of reading content discussions, (3) maintain high standards for text, conversation, questions, and vocabulary, (4) increase student motivation and engagement with reading, and (5) provide essential content knowledge to support student mastery of critical concepts. Find out why these strategies and the literacy areas they represent are so important.
Millions of today's adolescents lack the reading skills demanded by today's world. The impending crisis — millions of under-literate young people unable to succeed economically and socially — requires an immediate response. This report outlines 15 key elements of effective adolescent literacy programs and recommends that schools use a mix of these elements, tailoring the combinations to the needs of individual students.
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.
Adolescents and Literacy: Reading for the 21st Century
This report reviews and analyzes existing research on effective literacy instruction and the impact of successful literacy programs for students in grades 4-12.
Using the Classroom Walk-Through as an Instructional Leadership Strategy
Classroom walk-throughs can be an important strategy to facilitate discussions among principals and teachers about classroom practice.
