Nuts and Bolts of Adolescent Literacy

Nuts and Bolts of
Adolescent Literacy

Myths and Realities of Adolescent
Literacy

Myth 1: Adolescents don’t need
decoding instruction

False

The Reading Process
The goal of all reading instruction is to create accurate
and fluent readers who comprehend what they read.
(Calhoon, 2006)
1. Reading is a complex task requiring the coordination and
procedural sequencing of a multitude of sub-skills.
2. A breakdown in the mastery of any of the sub-skills that
comprise the reading process can have a direct impact on
reading fluency.
3. Automaticity of the lower sub-skills allows attention to be
allocated to the acquisition of higher-level sub-skills (fluency and
comprehension.

What we know about the factors that
affect reading comprehension
Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:
• Accurate and fluent word reading skills
• Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic
comprehension)
• Extent of conceptual and factual knowledge
• Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to
improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks
down.
• Reasoning and inferential skills
• Motivation to understand and interest in task and
materials

The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading
(Scarborough, 2001)
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE
LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
VERBAL REASONING
LITERACY KNOWLEDGE
Skilled Readingfluent
coordination of
word reading and
SKILLED READING:
fluent execution and
coordination of word
recognition processes and text
comprehension.
comprehension
WORD RECOGNITION
PHON. AWARENESS
DECODING (and SPELLING)
SIGHT RECOGNITION
Reading is a multifaceted skill, gradually acquired over years of instruction and practice.

Big Points :
To maintain grade level reading skills
between 3 and 10, students must:
• Learn to recognize many thousands of new words “by
sight” in order to maintain fluency
• Learn the meaning of many thousands of new words
• Grow in knowledge of the world and how it works
• Improve their thinking and reasoning skills
• Learn to utilize more complex reading strategies
• In middle and high school, reading can be increasingly
defined as “thinking guided by print.”

Primary Characteristics of Struggling Readers in
Middle and High School
They are almost always less fluent readers—sight word
vocabularies many thousands of words smaller than
average readers
1. In eighth grade 34% of boys and 24% of girls cannot read at the basic
level
2. 67% of adolescents with disabilities are reading below the basic level
Usually know the meanings of fewer words
Usually have less conceptual knowledge
Are almost always less skilled in using strategies to
enhance comprehension or repair it when it breaks down

The 2005 National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) reveals that:
The leading reading crisis in our country is not one of 1st
through 4th but of older middle school students
(McCArdle & Chhabra, 2004)

Can phonics be successfully taught to
students who still struggle in this area as
fourth graders or 6 th graders?
Should phonics be taught to students
beyond early elementary school who still
do not have proficient skills in this area?

Adolescent Literacy
Phonological Impairments:
Most Adolescents with reading disabilities have a
core linguistic impairment at the lower sub-skill
level leading to deficits in word identification
and phonological processing.
Students lacking prerequisite awareness of
sounds, symbols, and word meanings can
improve their reading if these skills are directly,
systematically and actively taught.

Adolescent Literacy
Comprehension Impairments:
• Strategy instruction, where teachers demonstrate,
explain, model, implement and scaffold strategies has
emerged as an appropriate method for teaching
reading comprehension. (NRP, 2000)
• Research has shown the most important
comprehension skills students need to learn are
questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting.

Adolescent Literacy
The Challenge for teaching adolescents with reading
disabilities is not how to appropriately teach each
individual sub-skill but how best to sequentially
balance each sub-skill (phonemic decoding,
spelling, reading fluency, and reading
comprehension) to maximize the responsiveness
of these students. (Mathes et al, 1998; Lovett, et
al., 2000; Torgesen et al., 2001)

Early Literacy Instruction
Scientifically based research on early literacy
instruction should be provided with a variety of
experiences relating to all aspects of reading
through a sequential balancing.
Students should be exposed to:
Oral language activities that promote concept
and vocabulary development such as story
reading, accompanied by verbal discussions,
phonics lessons, word recognition
instruction,spelling, and writing activities.
The reading of connected text should be added as
quickly as possible allowing for practice of
learned skills in context.

Current Adolescent Literacy Instruction
• Remedial reading programs for older
students typically follow the same
sequential introduction of sub-skills as in
early literacy instruction, together in
one lesson

Closing the gap in middle and high school:
the fundamental challenge
Each year, the demands of text become more
challenging

Improving reading skills in middle and high
school
1. Intensify our efforts to prevent reading difficulties
in the first place
2. Be sure we have powerful remedial programs in
place in 4 th and 5 th grade
3. Offer a continuum of intensity in reading
instruction while also improving the contribution
of content area teachers to literacy growth.

A Continuum of Literacy Instruction
Level 1: Enhance content instruction
Level 2: Embedded strategy instruction
Level 3: Intensive strategy instruction
Level 4: Intensive basic skill instruction
Level 5: Therapeutic intervention
Tutoring: Strategic tutoring

RETHINKING ADOLESCENT
LITERACY INSTRUCTION
• How do we teach reading to middle
school and high school students with
reading disabilities?

Diagnostic decision tree for students who perform below standards on a measure of reading
comprehension in 3 rd Grade or later
TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency
(45 second subtest)
Scores above 39 th %ile
(for student’s grade level)
Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test or
Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic
Evaluation
(vocab and comprehension subtests)
Scores at or below 39 th %ile
(for student’s grade level)
TOWRE Phonemic Decoding
(45 second subtest)
Above 39 th %ile
At or below 39 th %ile
Above 39 th %ile
At or below 39 th %ile
QRI-3
Identify independent/
instructional reading levels;
Diagnose reading/
thinking strategies
Build fluency plus
voc and comp.
Above 39 th %ile
CTOPP
(Elision subtest)
At or below 39 th %ile
Background knowledge?
Vocabulary?
Details/explicit questions?
Inferring/implicit questions?
Synthesizing/main idea?
Test taking strategies
Higher order questioning
Practice writing extended responses
citing support from text
Intensive instruction in
phonics based program
Needs phonics based
program that explicitly
addresses phonemic
awareness (not
assumes)

TOWRE Scoring
…a test of sight word
efficiency

The side of the tree for students with word level
skills above the 39 th percentile
Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test or
Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation
(vocab and comprehension subtests)
Above
39 th %
Test taking strategies
Higher order questioning
Practice writing extended
responses citing support from
text
At or below 39 th %
QRI-3
Identify independent/instructional
reading levels;Diagnose reading/
thinking strategies
Build background knowledge
Teach vocabulary
Teach comprehension strategies

The side of the tree for students with word
reading difficulties
At or
below the
39 th
percentile
on a
measure
of word
reading
accuracy
and
fluency
TOWRE
test of
phonemic
decoding
efficiency
(45 secs.)
Above
39 th %
At or
below
39 th %
Needs phonics based
program that builds PA,
not assumes it
At or
below
39 th %
Build
fluency
CTOPP
Elision
Subtest
Above
39 th %
Intensive instruction in
phonics based program

TOWRE Scoring
…a test of phonemic
decoding efficiency

Case Study-Aaron, Grade 6
Can your district help? What can
your district do to help Aaron?

Intensive instruction in reading for
students with serious difficulties
What students do: Students develop decoding skills and
increase reading fluency through specialized, direct, and
intensive instruction in reading.
What professionals do: Teachers, reading specialists, special
education teachers, speech-language pathologists, and other
support staff team develop intensive and coordinated
instructional experiences designed to address severe literacy
deficits. Reading specialists and special education teachers
often deliver these services. They also assist content teachers
in making appropriate modifications in content instruction to
accommodate severe literacy deficits.

Intensive instruction in reading for
students with serious difficulties
What it looks like: Small group or 1:1, everyday for 45-60
minutes, instruction is systematic and explicit, focuses on
phonemic decoding, reading accuracy, and building fluency
One way to do this is to use research-based programs to
support and guide the instruction
Corrective Reading
Spell Read P.A.T.
Wilson Reading System
Lindamood-Bell Programs
Failure Free Reading

A different model for improving reading
skills in middle and high school
Every professional in the school teaches reading/
literacy for 45-60 minutes a day
Children with the lowest reading skills are taught in the
smallest groups—4-6 students
Instruction is provided to different groups/classes
based on need – word level skills, advanced
decoding/fluency, comprehension strategies, critical
thinking/analysis in reading and writing

A different model for improving reading
skills in middle and high school
Children with skills below 4 th grade level– Groups of 4-
6—focus on word level skills building accuracy and
fluency – corrective reading
Children with mid level skills (4 th -6 th grade) – advanced
decoding—group reading practice with comprehension
and work to build fluency
Children with more advanced skills—focus on critical
reading and writing strategies

Still another model for improving reading
skills in middle and high school
Adopt a comprehensive literacy/language arts
program like Language! that has been written for older
children
Create classes of 15-20 students based on entering
levels of skill
Be prepared to keep most students in this program for
2-3 years

What can we reasonably expect from
effective interventions with older
students:
We can expect to have a relatively strong effect
on their reading accuracy
We can expect a relatively strong effect on
reading comprehension in situations where the
passages are not too long, or there or are not
significant time constraints
We should not expect a dramatic effect on
relative fluency over the short-term

The take away ideas:
Because reading in middle and high
school is “thinking guided by print,”
helping students meet grade level
standards in reading is a job for all
teachers, not just “reading teachers.”

Myth 2: All teachers should be
reading teachers.

False
• Literacy is more complex than just
reading.
• Reading is more complex than just
decoding.
– Need decoding to read
– To understand need vocabulary, background
knowledge, and fluency.

The take away ideas:
It’s at least as much about building
content knowledge, vocabulary, and
thinking skills as it is about helping
struggling readers learn to read
accurately and fluently

Myth 3: Reading coaches are the
key.

False
• Supporting teachers for adolescent
literacy interventions
• How do we provide support to teachers
as they learn and implement strong
instructional interventions for
adolescents?

Classroom Practices for Adolescents
• Most adolescents who are poor readers need
to improve their fluency and comprehension
skills. Some need to upgrade their word
attack skills.
• Five categories of instructional
interventions drawn from research target
these needs and pose different
implementation challenges to teachers.

Classroom Practices:
•Modeling
•Vocabulary Building
•Cooperative Learning
•Self-Selected Reading
•Focused Tutoring

Modeling
• Students can learn reading comprehension
strategies by observing an expert reader who verbally
demonstrates various techniques and by practicing these
approaches.
• Teachers can use a “read aloud/think-aloud” activity.
• Teachers can visualize, predict, question, summarize
and guess unknown words from the context.
• Teachers can model metacognitive strategies of
checking for understanding by re-reading for
clarification.

Building Vocabulary
• Students can build reading fluency by expanding
their word recognition vocabulary.
• Teachers can pull problematic words from upcoming
assignments for practice with students before reading.
• Teachers can engage students in understanding the
meaning of new words by asking them to guess what it
means, followed with possible probes about word
family roots or prefixes and suffixes.
• Students can use newly learned words in meaningful
sentences.

Cooperative Learning
• Students can learn reading comprehension strategies
through focused discussions of readings they have
shared with their peers, to gain a deeper understanding.
•Student discussions should consider character and plot
development in fiction, arguments on alternatives in
nonfiction.
• Students need to have relevant background
information and a purpose for undertaking the topic.
• Teachers can activate background information as
context for a reading assignments and a motivator.

Self-Selected Reading
• Student fluency is a function of how much practice
students have had.
• The class library should include a variety of materials
to appeal to various gender and race-ethnic groups at
multiple levels so students can read without frustration.
• Teachers can activate background information as
context for a reading assignments and a motivator.
• Activities should be available to record student’s
completion and understanding of the selection.

Focused Tutoring
• Adolescent readers will profit from personal attention
from their teacher to assess current individual learning
needs and address them.
• Formal progress monitoring of student’s reading
progress can be combined with informal teacher
conferences with students.
• Focused tutoring should be available for students who
still have decoding and word attack problems or who
struggle with other aspects of reading,

What do we know about the
effectiveness of
interventions for older
students who continue to
struggle in reading?

A very recent
report on ―what
works‖ with middle
and high schools
students.
Contains a 15 point
research- based
―action plan‖ for
middle and high
schools
Download at:
http://www.all4ed.org
/publications/Readin
gNext/ReadingNext.
pdf

Reading Next: Two kinds of action items
Instructional
1. Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
2. Effective instruction embedded in content areas
3. Motivation and self-direction
4. Text-based collaborative learning
5. Strategic tutoring-intensive
6. Diverse Texts
7. Intensive Writing
8. A technology component
9. Ongoing formative assessment

Reading Next: Two kinds of action items
Infrastructure improvements
• Extended time for literacy-2-4 hours across day
• Professional Development
• Ongoing summative assessment of students and
programs
• Teacher teams
• Leadership
• A comprehensive and coordinated literacy
program

A comprehensive literacy solution for middle
and high school
1. Remember that the thinking and knowledge
demands for literacy increase every year
Content area teachers must teach content more
powerfully, and they must help students think
about text more effectively
2. Remember the most struggling readers are far
behind their peers in many areas
Teach them reading skills as intensively and skillful
as you can manage

Improving reading skills in middle and high
school
1. Schedule a 90 minute block every day for other
students reading below grade level
Word level skills- fluency
Strategy instruction and engagement in
thinking about text
Both embedded and systematic vocabulary
instruction
Lots of guided, supported practice in reading

Improving reading skills in middle and high
school
1. Schedule a three hour block every day for
students with reading skills more than two years
below grade level with word level difficulties
Word level skills- accuracy and fluency
Strategy instruction and engagement in
thinking about text
Both embedded and systematic vocabulary
instruction
Lots of guided, supported practice in reading

Is it really possible to
substantially improve the
reading skills of
struggling readers after
elementary school?
The greatest danger for most of us is not
that our aim is too high and we miss it, but
that it is too low and we reach it.
Michelangelo

Thank you and Good Luck!
Dr. Lori Strong &
Marcia S. Atwood
October 1, 2007