AdLit News Headlines

A new effort in Los Angeles public schools will deemphasize standardized testing and look for new ways to measure student progress, a small but ambitous rejection of a decades-old nationwide approach to student evaluation.

These tips can help teachers create a positive and lasting connection with families and students.

These short story collections center diverse characters and stories in creepy, readable tales.

Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution of the timing of puberty in Pleistocene teens, researchers are addressing a knowledge gap about how early humans grew up.

Today, students aren’t reading as much and don’t seem to have the desire to. Teachers are concerned students can’t handle reading assignments and are not coming to college prepared to do the work. Recent studies have looked at some unsurprising key reasons: the prevalence of social media; the pandemic and online learning; schools expect less from students; people are reading fewer books than before. But another reason that hits home in Missouri and Kansas and across the country: persistent censorship and book ban challenges at the elementary and high school levels.

Community college is often touted as an affordable start for students who want to earn bachelor’s degrees. Yet only 13% of community college students actually go on to earn degrees from four-year institutions within eight years, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education in 2023.

In a gut-wrenching account shared widely on social media, Jennifer Carter, who for more than 20 years has taught Spanish at the school in Winder, Ga., described her horrific experience of putting into motion her preparation for a moment she hoped would never come.

Teaching multilingual students about Greek and Latin roots in words can help them systematically build their knowledge of English.

Going from being among the oldest, most “senior” students to landing at the proverbial bottom rung of the academic and social ladder can feel like a swift and startling descent for even the most self-assured student. Tack on adolescents’ frequently awkward and turbulent physical transitions and surging hormones, plus the increased academic expectations in middle or high school, and the experience can quickly become overwhelming.

Current efforts to stifle scientific theories in school are reminiscent of the attacks on the teaching of the theory of evolution.

Wednesday’s violence at a Georgia high school and the arrest of a 14-year-old suspect follow a familiar pattern of previous school shootings. After every one, there’s been a tendency to ask, “How do we prevent the next one?” For years, school safety experts, and even the U.S. Secret Service, have rallied around some very clear answers. Here’s what they say.

Middle-grade stories should be focused firmly on kids, with adults pushed back to secondary roles. It’s okay for the adults to make quick appearances, but they shouldn’t be too important to the story. They shouldn’t be major drivers. But lately we’ve both noticed that fully-fledged adult characters who are intrinsic to the action are becoming more and more common in MG books. Why is this change happening in kidlit, and does it reflect larger changes in our culture?

Amid a surge in book bans nationwide, the librarian Amanda Jones was targeted by vicious threats. So she decided to fight back.

This is not your standard back-to-school story, about school supplies or first-day butterflies. It’s about how school-aged members of Gen Z — that’s 12- to 18-year-olds — are feeling about school and the future. And according to a new national survey, those feelings are a little worrying.

A new national report from USC researchers reveals pre-teen boys, teen girls, and Black families need more, targeted mental health supports.

Efforts have been launched to turn around plummeting student scores in U.S. history, civics, amid declining citizen engagement across nation.

Grade 3-8 teachers say nearly half of students always or nearly always have difficulty reading, according to a Rand Corporation report.

The suit challenges a Florida statute that gives parents and residents more say over the vetting of library materials for sexual content.

Detroit district high school students who are two or more grade levels behind in reading will receive cash gift cards as an incentive to attend after-school tutoring sessions.

According to a 2023 survey by the School Library Journal, graphic novels have risen in popularity at over 90% of school libraries. However, the same survey reported that a majority of librarians experienced opposition to graphic novels from parents, teachers and others who didn’t consider them “real books.” Yet, when teachers dispel preconceived notions about comics and graphic novels, they can unlock these books’ potential as educational tools.

These 15 engaging fiction series—middle school students love series—help them build literacy skills because they want to keep reading.

Young people are staying up late, consuming excess caffeine and crashing during school.

We asked kids across the U.S. to share their best tips on going back to school — and they delivered. Read on for advice from a second-grader all the way to a kid almost done with high school.

Linda B. Gambrell, professor emerita in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at Clemson University and a past president of the ILA, died on August 6, 2024, at the age of 82. Considered a towering figure in the literacy field, Gambrell’s contributions as a researcher, educator, leader, and friend leave an indelible mark on the profession and the countless lives she touched.

In California about 1 in 4 students, or more than 1.45 million, were chronically absent in 2022-23, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year — a rate comparable to the national average. Although society may have largely moved on from COVID, educators say they are still grappling with the effects of pandemic school closures. After months to a year or more at home, school for many students has felt overwhelming, boring or socially stressful. More than ever, children and parents have been deciding it’s OK to stay home, which makes catching up even harder.

We asked middle and high school librarians what new titles they’re excited to share with students as they return to school. Here’s what they said. 

Kids should be allowed to have their quality friend time; it is a type of intimacy rarely replicated in adulthood. These 14 titles illustrate the significance of these tenets of complex tween friendships.

Your classes will probably be more like Abbott Elementary than Dead Poets Society, and that’s OK.

Ms. Colvin won national acclaim for starting Literacy Volunteers of America, a program that has taught millions of people to read and write.

Find out what connects ‘galaxy’ to ‘lactose’ and ‘sarcasm’ to ‘sarcophagus.’

The science, art, and politics of teaching an essential skill.

Online leaks have upended a prestigious math contest, fueling worries that honest kids will lose out.

Some high schools and states are experimenting with ways to integrate literacy instruction across all classes.

When an engaging review activity asks students to distill the most essential takeaway from the unit, they must reflect, revise, and debate until they reach consensus.

Math Hoops, a curriculum based on the player draft and stats of an National Basketball Association season, helps students learn foundational math skills, while also incorporating lessons around social-emotional learning and sportsmanship.

The Department of Education has again delayed the rollout of its updated federal financial aid application, known as FAFSA. Typically, the form is made available in October, and students fill it out for the following academic year. However, the form for the 2024-2025 cycle was also delayed to December last year, as the department worked to update its technology – per a congressional mandate. In the process, families’ incomes were not adjusted for inflation, which caused a $1.8 billion deficit in available aid.

A recent study has found that mental health screener scores are linked in important ways to grades and attendance. 

Pixar’s smash summer movie, “Inside Out 2,” introduces Anxiety into the other emotions working inside young Riley’s mind. Similar movies can help explain the complex mix of emotions that occur during adolescence, a UVA researcher says.

BookTok has encouraged young readers and turbocharged book sales. But is the social media phenomenon really about love of literature?

Historical Fantasy as a subgenre plays with expectations, creating a unique reading experience. What we know about the past is already a part of our expectations from previous readings, studies, or media. We’ve been to museums, seen the photos and read the history books. Historical Fantasy serves as a way to explore themes within a historical context and have a bit of fun. 

Chanea Bond will ban AI this year to give her high school English students the opportunity to develop foundational skills that she believes the tech hinders.

Educators and researchers are interested in ways that ChatGPT and other generative AI tools might move beyond the role of “cheatbot” and become part of the network of resources students use for writing. Researchers studied how high school students used ChatGPT as a writing support while writing arguments about topics like school mascots. They found that ChatGPT can become a part of a social, distributed model of writing, and that students can use ChatGPT as a resource for writing without sidestepping the processes of planning, drafting, and reviewing.

As climate change makes dangerous weather events more common and intensifies the threat of extreme rainfall, high schoolers in Bloomington, Ind., are coming up with creative new ways to manage human-caused climate change. Reporter Lee Gaines with member station WFYI visited their classroom and brought back this report.

Setting up a system in which students have opportunities to help each other in class can improve learning and encourage a sense of community.

Ten challenges that invite teenagers to engage, experiment, reflect and create — via writing, photography, audio, video and more.

According to new research from Circana, a consumer research firm, middle-grade readers are now the biggest underperforming segment in the American market. “Middle grade,” a term that gets confused with “middle school,” refers to children’s literature — the traditional novels of childhood (“A Wrinkle in Time,” “Wonder,” “The Westing Game”) that lodge in our hearts for a lifetime. These are the books that make us readers.

Students in most states can earn a distinction on their high school diplomas that acknowledges their proficiency in English and at least one other world language. But what if there is no available assessment for a language a student has learned?

An innovative middle school program is transforming education while tackling attendance and engagement problems. This refreshing approach could be the key to making school more engaging and preparing the next generation of environmental problem-solvers, and it’s one of an increasing number of such projects around the country that is empowering the younger generation in hands-on ways. “It’s just like a happier version of school.”

A new £62m longitudinal population study in the UK is set to collect biological and lifestyle data on 100,000 eight to 18-year-olds over a decade, to understand the health of adolescents post Covid-19. 

If students have specific readers or a purpose in mind, they’re more likely to enjoy and engage in writing assignments, an education professor suggests.

“Morning Edition” remembers author Francine Pascal, who created the young adult series, “Sweet Valley High,” who has died at 92.

In findings that suggest more young Americans struggling with mental health issues are getting the help they need, a new poll shows that nearly a third of American adolescents and teens received some sort of mental health treatment in 2023.

Creating school communities where all students feel a true sense of belonging is no small feat. It’s a complex concept affected by so many different dynamics—from how students get along with their peers to whether they feel represented in the school curriculum, according to researchers and education policy leaders who discussed the concept during a webinar on July 24.