Word Up!, The AdLit.org newsletter

Past Issues

Background Knowledge and Reading Comprehension

Knowledge begets knowledge. Students draw upon what they already know to master new vocabulary and content. For example, students who already know something about World War II will bring that knowledge to bear when reading an unfamiliar text on the subject. Research has shown that building and activating students' prior knowledge of concepts and vocabulary can increase reading comprehension.

Here are some suggestions for building and accessing background knowledge:

Summer Reading for Everyone

For several months we've offered summer reading suggestions for students, but why should kids have all the fun? This month, we asked educators to recommend books that had helped them with their practice. Here are some of the suggestions we received.

Preparing Your Child for a New School

Transitioning to middle school or high school can be a stressful event for students and their families. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) offer tips to help parents prepare their children for these rites of passage.

Sink Your Teeth into Teen Read Week

YALSA sponsors Teen Read Week each year to encourage teens to explore and take advantage of all the great resources libraries have to offer. This year's Teen Read Week is October 12-18 and the theme is Books with Bite@your library.

AdLit.org, YALSA, and Mirrorstone Books are looking for celebration ideas that involve significant collaboration between teachers and librarians. Share your ideas, and you could win some fabulous prizes, including the grand prize: an author visit from Kimberly Pauley, author of the soon-to-be-released YA novel Sucks To Be Me: The All True Confessions of Mina Hamilton,Teen Vampire.

AdLit.org and YALSA will share your suggestions, so check back for great ideas that will help you plan Teen Read Week celebrations with some teeth!

Featured Comprehension Strategies: Anticipation Guides and Possible Sentences

This month we feature two pre-reading strategies to help students' access their background knowledge: Anticipation Guides and Possible Sentences.

Anticipation Guides is a pre-reading strategy used to activate students' prior knowledge and build curiosity about a new topic. Before reading a selection, students respond to several statements that challenge or support their preconceived ideas about key concepts in the text.

Possible Sentences is a pre-reading vocabulary strategy that sparks students' curiosity about content-area words and reading. By asking your students to guess how a list of words may be used in the text, they become enticed to read the selection to determine whether their sentences were accurate.

Browse Classroom Strategies for more techniques to improve reading comprehension.

The AdLit.org Author Interview: David Lubar

David Lubar is the man behind the popular — and hilarious — "Weenies" short-story collections, and critically acclaimed titles like Dunk, Hidden Talents, and Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. Lubar is best known for his humor, but his young adult books are also filled with plenty of adventure and suspense. In our interview, Lubar stands up for weenies and philosophizes on gross-out humor.
Watch the interview >

Book Recommendations: Biographies

Reading biographies and other non-fiction titles is a great way to build background knowledge. Middle and high school students are frequently assigned biographies, but this genre is also a popular leisure reading choice for adolescents, as the stories often focus on people who have overcome adversity — a theme teens are drawn to again and again. This list features biographies of the famous, infamous, and not-so-famous!
Go to the booklist >

Community

A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education

In response to years of flawed reform efforts, a bipartisan task force comprising experts in education, health, housing, and civil rights recently launched a campaign calling for a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. The task force supports a comprehensive approach to closing the achievement gap, which includes:

  • Continued school improvement efforts,
  • Developmentally appropriate and high-quality early childhood, pre-school and kindergarten care and education,
  • Routine pediatric, dental, hearing and vision care for all infants, toddlers and school children.
  • Improving the quality of students' out-of-school time.

Enhancements to PBS Teachers

PBS Teachers Connect is a new online teacher community focused on digital media content and technology integration in education. PBS Teachers Connect facilitates collaboration among educators through the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs and forums that enable community members to share ideas and best practices, and form online groups with others who have common interests. The site offers a seamless user experience so educators can search multimedia instructional resources on the PBS Teachers web site, then easily bookmark, annotate, share, and manage their tagged content within the PBS Teachers Connect community.

Research

New Adolescent Literacy Database

The Education Commission of the States' High School Database includes a new adolescent literacy section. The database identifies state policy activity on 13 indicators, including whether states require schools to provide interventions for struggling readers, require secondary-level teacher candidates to complete coursework related to adolescent literacy needs, make available a specialized certification or endorsement in adolescent literacy for content area teachers, or offer principal incentives to strengthen their leadership in adolescent literacy.

Adolescent Literacy and Older Students with Learning Disabilities

Teens with LD frequently struggle with the increasing demands of critical reading and persuasive writing required in middle school and high school. These students struggle with motivation and drop out of school at higher rates than the general population.

In a new report, the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities makes a series of recommendations to support the literacy need of adolescents with LD, including:

  • Use of Response-to-Intervention (RTI)
  • Use of Universal Design
  • Development of learner profiles
  • Organizational restructuring

AdLit.org Featured Partner: American School Counselors Association (ASCA)

ASCA supports school counselors' efforts to help students focus on academic, personal/social and career development so they achieve success in school and are prepared to lead fulfilling lives as responsible members of society.

Professional school counselors recognize that each student possesses unique interests, abilities and goals that will lead to many future opportunities. Collaborating with students, parents, educational staff, and the community, the professional school counselor works to ensure that all students develop an academic and career plan that reflects their interests, abilities and goals and includes rigorous, relevant coursework and experiences appropriate for the student.

Memorable Quote

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow… He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt."
— To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

About AdLit.org

AdLit.org is a national educational service of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital. The goal of the project is to provide literacy resources to parents and educators of students in grades 4-12. Learn about easy ways you can link to us to let others know about the many free resources available from AdLit.org. AdLit.org is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and by the Ann B. and Thomas L. Friedman Family Foundation. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author(s).

All the best from AdLit.org

  • Susannah Harris, Manager, AdLit.org
  • Joanne Meier, Ph.D., Research Consultant
  • Katie Chase, Associate Editor
  • Sun Kim, Web Coordinator
  • Noel Gunther, Executive Director
  • Alan Lundy-Ponce, Director, Learning Media Websites
  • Kelly Deckert, Web Producer
  • Rachael Walker, Outreach Consultant
  • Kevin Coonce, Intern

Newsletter editors: Joanne Meier and Susannah Harris