Can Those Tweens and Teens Read Yet?

Abstract

AS students transition from the elementary grades into middle school and high school, it is taken for granted that they can read at least close to grade level. Insightful teachers, however, often find that to be far from true. Out of a class of 25, three students might not decode words well, five might have a problem with fluency, and another five might read aloud just fine but look up with deer-in-the-headlights eyes when asked to recap what they've read, because they don't know. Teachers know these things, but most don't know what to do about it. Most teachers who were trained to teach secondary English know how to teach such literature-related concepts as theme and character development, but they don't necessarily know how to teach kids to decode. As a high school English teacher who moved to a middle school to teach reading and language arts to fifth-and sixth-graders, I was that deer in the headlights when it came to helping kids at the lowest level learn to read. Over a year ago, I wrote about the need for states to address adolescent literacy. The National Governors Association and the Alliance for Excellent Education had just begun to push leaders' thinking on this issue. Since that time, however, state policies designed to ensure that teens and tweens read at grade level have not exactly been filling my in-basket. So to help gin up some interest across the legislatures, researchers at the Education Commission of the States added adolescent literacy as one of the measures to include in the ECS High School Policy Center database. Over the past year, researcher Melodye Bush scoured state policy. What follows is a summary of her findings. EFFORTS REFLECTIVE OF STATE LEADERSHIP State office or central coordination. The presence of a designated state office or coordinator can reflect a strong level of commitment and help ensure that a focus on adolescent reading and literacy is not pushed aside in favor of other priorities. The Just Read, Florida! office, for example, was legislatively created within the state department of education in 2006. In New York, the Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and Instructional Technology works with the Office of Early Education and Reading Initiatives to support increased adolescent literacy achievement. The Ohio Reading Improvement Office is housed in the state department of education and facilitates communications within the government to ensure alignment across the state's literacy and teacher training activities. The office also offers professional development, provides an online adolescent literacy journal, and runs a grant competition to fund research-based literacy programs in low-performing secondary schools. In Rhode Island, the State Literacy Advisory Panel provides advice concerning literacy programs and efforts. In Virginia, two state-level staffers coordinate adolescent literacy for the state. In addition to creating Just Read, Florida!, the Florida legislature established the Florida Center for Reading Research, which disseminates information through the Florida Progress Monitoring and Reporting Network. Clear standards, expectations. Clear, rigorous standards can help staff members understand what students in grades 4-12 should know and be able to do. Challenging standards improve efficiency, generate challenging and cohesive curriculum, and become the basis for holding students, teachers, and schools accountable. Standards are the launching pad for redesigning curriculum, assessment, accountability, teacher education, professional development, and resource allocation. Yet only a dozen states have standards explicitly reflecting literacy expectations. Building momentum and monitoring progress. State efforts to raise K-3 reading skills can founder in later grades if effective teaching of reading is neglected in the middle and secondary grades. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly half of the undergraduates enrolled in remedial classes in 2000 took remedial writing, and 35% took remedial reading. …