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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 Conceptual Model of Adolescent Literacy
A graphic representation of four sectors — perceptions, achievement, programs, and demographics — that influence adolescent literacy. A glossary of the conceptual model's components is included.
Adolescent Literacy and Older Students with Learning Disabilities
This report describes the adolescent literacy problem (grades 4 to 12), its consequences, and contributing factors. Guiding principles for assessment, instruction, and professional development, as well as recommendations for short-term and future consideration, are also addressed.
Adolescent Literacy and Older Students with Learning Disabilities (Executive Summary)
The full report describes the adolescent literacy problem (grades 4 to 12), its consequences, and contributing factors. Guiding principles for assessment, instruction, and professional development, as well as recommendations for short-term and future consideration, are addressed.
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.
African-American Students and U.S. High Schools
This fact sheet, prepared by the Alliance for Excellent Education, looks at statistics related to the graduation rates and college readiness of African-American students, as well as the quality of the teachers and schools that serve them.
Demography as Destiny: How America Can Build a Better Future
Barely 50% of minority students graduate from high school on time. If this trend continues and the minority student populations increase as projected, the economic strength of the U.S. will be undermined. But if 78% of all student populations graduate on time by 2020, the U.S. can realize stunning potential benefits: conservatively, more than $310 billion would be added to the national economy.
Dropout Risk Factors and Exemplary Programs
Dropout decisions may involve up to 25 significant factors, ranging from parenthood to learning disabilities. The most effective interventions address the various factors and employ multiple strategies, including personal asset building, academic support, and family outreach. A list of fifty "exemplary" programs is included.
For Teens, Phonics Isn't Enough
Schools often struggle to find appropriate materials and approaches to support adolescent literacy. Strategies that work for children can ignore teens' existing skills, knowledge, and life experience, and exclude them from the critical content that their peers are studying. Here are some effective teaching strategies for struggling older students.
Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well: Six Features of Effective Instruction
Building on research in secondary classrooms, the Center on English Learning and Achievement has developed a practical booklet that describes six essential features of effective literacy instruction and spells out how teachers can enact them.
