Adolescent Literacy Research Articles

The Hunger Games: Literature, Literacy, and Online Affinity Spaces

This article examines adolescent literacy practices related to The Hunger Games, a young adult novel and the first of a trilogy. By focusing on the interaction of social identities, discourses, and media paratexts within an online affinity space, this ethnographic study offers insight into how young adults engage with contemporary literature. Moreover, it contributes to our understanding of how they use technology as an integral part of social networking and meaning making. The article ends with recommendations related to the teaching of young adult literature and the integration of digital tools and online spaces into the curriculum.

The Federal Role in Adolescent Literacy from Johnson through Obama: A Policy Regimes Analysis

This article examines the federal role in adolescent literacy from its roots in Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration with the Economic Opportunity Act (1964) through the Reading for Understanding grants of 2010. The authors consider the extent to which the recent attention to and changes in the federal approach to adolescent literacy can be explained through the policy regime framework. Specifically, the study traces shifts in the policy paradigm around adolescent literacy and asks whether key actors and issue specialists that have routinely been part of the reading education policy regime at the federal level have changed over time.

New Directions in Reading Instruction for Adolescents With Significant Cognitive Disabilities

This article reports findings from a literature review on literacy instruction for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities. Nineteen empirical studies published between 1975 and 2011 were included in the review and analyzed based on characteristics of interventions. The results were examined to determine whether the state of research in this area indicates a comprehensive approach to literacy for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities. Results indicate that vocabulary instruction through sight word acquisition is still prevalent, instruction is not comprehensive, and instruction does not address recommendations from the field for adolescent literacy. However, innovative approaches to literacy instruction for this population are beginning to be explored. The current state of research on reading practices for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities, implications for practice, and suggestions for new directions in research are discussed.

The Literacy Needs of Adolescents: What Do Content-Area Teachers Know?

21st-century adolescents face greater literacy demands than their predecessors. Consequently, many state and local school systems have initiated efforts to increase and improve literacy instruction for adolescent learners. Using survey research, this study strove to gauge middle and high school content-area teachers' foundational knowledge of adolescent literacy. The researcher used three policy documents published by the Carnegie Corporation as the foundation for the survey, which consisted of close-ended questions. The researcher utilized an online survey platform to locate and solicit potential participants. A total of 161 teachers participated. First, descriptive data were computed to determine participants' knowledge of adolescent literacy in general as well as subcomponents of the survey. Second, an ANOVA was computed to compare the performance of content-area subgroups. Results indicated that content-area teachers have limited declarative knowledge of adolescent literacy. Furthermore, data indicated that a significant difference did not exist among the content-area subgroups' performance.

Reports from the Field: Using Indigenous Research Practices to Transform Indigenous Literacy Education: A Canadian Study

Indigenous students face immense educational disadvantage in mainstream schooling which leads to a number of negative consequences for them as individuals and for their communities. Therefore, the issue of teaching literacy with principles derived from research informed by Indigenous ways of knowing is of critical importance. This article reviews adolescent literacy learning in general and the challenges faced especially by Indigenous students in Western classrooms. Next we discuss the importance of cultural sensitivity in literacy teaching and describe a literacy education program based on principles for teaching literacy to Indigenous students using Indigenous research practices. We found that Indigenous students need teachers who establish relationships with them; classroom activities that encourage active involvement, inclusion of their cultural background, power sharing in the classroom, and use of a variety of sign systems — especially oral and visual ones — in order to improve their literacy.

Key Areas of Effective Adolescent Literacy Programs

This paper reviews best practices for effective adolescent literacy programs. A focus is placed on five areas of literacy instruction including word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation. Each of these areas is discussed as well as how each area is relevant to reading and understanding narrative and content-area text at high levels.

Scaffolding: An Ongoing Process to Support Adolescent Writing Development

AbstractThe termscaffoldingis used widely in literacy instruction but often in broad or conflicting ways. Drawing on Wood, Bruner, and Ross's original theory of scaffolding and Langer and Applebee's theory of instructional scaffolding in English language arts, in this article, the author examines scaffolding in the context of secondary writing instruction. The author draws on seminal literature to frame scaffolding as a process that begins with selecting an appropriate task and is facilitated by the teacher's instructional decisions and demeanor. Then, the author provides examples from current research for each of these areas of the scaffolding process and concludes with recommendations for using scaffolding effectively in adolescent literacy instruction.

Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines: general principles and practical strategies

Jetton, Lee, Learning from Text: Adolescent Literacy from the Past Decade. Fang, The Challenges of Reading Disciplinary Texts. Shanahan, How Disciplinary Experts Read. Jetton, Lee, A Model for Teacher Planning with Text in the Academic Disciplines. Hicks, Steffel, Learning with Text in English/Language Arts. Shanahan, Learning with Text in Science. Siebert, Draper, Reconceptualizing Literacy and Instruction for Mathematics Classrooms. VanSledright, Learning with Texts in History: Protocols for Reading and Practical Strategies. Moxley, Batcheller, Burditt, Gamble, Gumm, Paas, Thurston, Learning with Text in the Arts.

Adolescent Literacy: Looking Back and Moving Forward in the Global Flow

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Looking at Literacy in the 21st Century

Literacy instruction has shifted in recent years alongside acts of legislation. Areas of literacy education like adolescent literacy and RTI are now receiving increased attention, whereas phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency receive considerably less attention than 10 years ago. Comparative discussions describe “very hot” and “cold” topics as they relate to philosophy/approach, level, content, materials, and assessment in 2001 versus 2010. Educators can utilize this content information to inform their instruction and direct attention to needed areas within their own schools.

What We Know About Adolescents' Out‐of‐School Literacies, What We Need to Learn, and Why Studying Them Is Important: An Interview With Michael W. Smith

AbstractMichael W. Smith, a professor in Temple University's College of Education, focuses his research on how experienced readers read and talk about texts as well as what motivates adolescents' reading and writing in and out of school. He sees the recent research on adolescents' out‐of‐school literacies as a challenge to literacy educators to look at what kids do, what kids can do, and what educators ought to do in new ways. He would like to see more research that speaks to those outside the adolescent literacy specialization. One implication of the research on students' out‐of‐school literacies for classroom teachers is that students might be more engaged in school if it presented the conditions that foster engagement outside of school. As a teacher and teacher educator, Smith is coming to regard new literacies as important ends in themselves and not just as bridges to more conventionally academic literacies.

Occupying Youth Development: The Pitfalls and Potential of Literacy Policies and Youth Development

AbstractThis column explores the intersection between adolescent literacy policies and the field of youth development. The crisis framing of young people used in literacy policy documents has come to “occupy” the field of youth development in an all hands on deck approach to remediate young people who are considered “behind.” At the same time, there are spaces where literacy and youth development are melding beautifully. The author explores both the potentials and pitfalls when literacy policy and youth development intersect by examining a literacy initiative supported by the Youth Development Institute in a community‐based organization for young people involved in the juvenile justice system.

“I Was Skeptical at First”: Content Literacy in the Art Museum

AbstractThis manuscript describes 51 preservice teachers’ reactions to their engagement with works of art in a community art museum. Participants were individuals in an adolescent literacy course who were future teachers of middle and secondary content subjects. They were initially skeptical about using artwork to support their content and serve as a catalyst for reading and writing. Based on their written reflections, however, attitudes changed dramatically following their experiences at the art museum and their application of the images to specific issues in their subject specialization. Analysis of their feedback showed perceived benefits to fall into five categories: (1) increased understanding of ways to integrate content, (2) development of additional resources, (3) practice thinking outside the proverbial box, (4) the ability to provide for multiple intelligences and learning preferences, and (5) an opportunity to get out of the classroom. Such benefits, they concluded, better prepared them as teachers.

A Case Study on the Improvement of North Korean Refugee Adolescent's Literacy through Recreating Korean Folklore My Own Fortune

A Case Study on the Improvement of North Korean Refugee Adolescent's Literacy through Recreating Korean Folklore My Own Fortune

Disciplinary Literacy From a Speech–Language Pathologist's Perspective

Disciplinary literacy is an increasingly popular focal area in adolescent literacy. In disciplinary literacy, the discourse features of specific knowledge domains (e.g., literature, history, science, and math) assume major importance in understanding and constructing meaning in each discipline. Because language plays a significant role in disciplinary literacy, speech–language pathologists (SLPs), as professionals with expertise in language, can contribute in important ways to adolescents' proficiency in this area. This is especially true with adolescents who struggle, for whom difficulty understanding or manipulating language may be at the root of their problems. Work in disciplinary literacy is consistent with roles and responsibilities of SLPs in schools, as outlined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2010). The authors explore specific ways in which SLPs may address adolescent literacy by working directly with adolescents who struggle or with their teachers to support classroom instruction in specific content domains. A major concept presented is that adolescents who struggle are likely to need work on more fundamental language and literacy elements in addition to those germane to specific disciplines.

Language Correlates of Disciplinary Literacy

Disciplinary literacy is defined here as the ability to engage in social, semiotic, and cognitive practices consistent with those of content experts. Characterizing literacy development as a process of braiding 3 language strands of everyday language, abstract language, and metaphoric language, this

Reading Like a Historian: A Document-Based History Curriculum Intervention in Urban High Schools

Enthusiasm about the instructional potential of primary sources dates to the late nineteenth century and has been echoed recently in the work of literacy experts, historians, and educational psychologists. Yet, no extended intervention study has been undertaken to test the effectiveness of primary source instruction in real history classrooms. This study, with 236 11th-grade students in five San Francisco high schools, represented the first extended curriculum intervention in disciplinary reading in an urban district. The Reading Like a Historian (RLH) curriculum constituted a radical departure from traditional textbook-driven instruction by using a new activity structure, the “Document-Based Lesson,” in which students used background knowledge to interrogate, and then reconcile, historical accounts from multiple texts. A quasi-experiment control design measured the effects of a 6-month intervention on four dimensions: (a) students’ historical thinking; (b) their ability to transfer historical thinking strategies to contemporary issues; (c) their mastery of factual knowledge; and (d) their growth in general reading comprehension. MANCOVA analysis yielded significant main effects for the treatment condition on all four outcome measures. This study has implications for both adolescent literacy instruction and history teaching at the middle- and high-school levels.

Best practices in literacy instruction

Duke, Foreword. Del Nero, Morrow, Gambrell, Introduction. Part I: Perspectives on Best Practices. Gambrell, Malloy, Mazzoni, Evidence-Based Best Practices in Comprehensive Literacy Instruction. Madda, Griffo, Pearson, Raphael, Balance in Comprehensive Literacy Instruction: Evolving Conceptions. Part II: Best Practices for All Students. Morrow, Tracey, Del Nero, Best Practices in Early Literacy: Preschool, Kindergarten, and First Grade. Allington, Best Practices with Struggling Readers. Carlo, Bengochea, Best Practices in Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners. Ogle, Lang, Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction. Part III: Evidence-Based Strategies for Literacy Learning and Teaching. Guthrie, Best Practices in Motivating Students to Read. Cunningham, Best Practices in Teaching Phonological Awareness and Phonics. Blachowicz, Fisher, Best Practices in Vocabulary Instruction Revisited. Almasi, Hart, Best Practices in Comprehension Instruction. Kuhn, Rasinski, Best Practices in Fluency Instruction. Bromley, Best Practices in Teaching Writing. Afflerbach, Kim, Crassas, Cho, Best Practices in Literacy Assessment. Part IV: Perspectives on Special Issues. Fisher, Frey, Best Practices in Content-area Teaching. McKenna, Labbo, Conradi, Baxter, Effective Use of Technology in Literacy Instruction. Rowsell, Lapp, New Literacies in Literacy Instruction. Reutzel, Organizing Effective Literacy Instruction: Differentiating Instruction to Meet Student Needs. Paratore, Edwards, Parent-teacher Partnerships That Make a Difference in Children's Literacy Achievement. Bean, Morewood, Best Practices in Professional Development for Improving Literacy Instruction in Schools.

What RTI Means for Content Area Teachers

AbstractResponse to Intervention (RTI) has the potential to have a positive impact on adolescent literacy by requiring content‐area teachers to provide Tier 1 literacy instruction. This commentary suggests that content‐area teachers can help their students improve their content knowledge and literacy skills by providing discipline‐specific strategy instruction in their classes. To do this, content‐area teachers should have a clear understanding of how literacy is used in their discipline and demonstrate those processes for their students. Moreover, content‐area teachers should provide students with more opportunities to read grade‐appropriate texts, differentiate reading materials, and assess literacy progress. Furthermore, content‐area teachers should provide literacy coaches with classroom texts and topics so that Tier‐2 interventions can be coordinated with classroom teaching. These changes in content‐area teaching could make a difference in the literacy achievement of students.

Reflective inquiry and pre-service teachers’ conceptions of content area literacies

The authors report on the results of a reflective inquiry project implemented during the first five weeks of a 15-week course on content literacy methods for secondary pre-service teachers. The goal of the project was to disrupt taken for granted and commonplace assumptions about literacy processes, particularly in relationship to professional and ethical responsibilities to educate all students. A description and analysis of Literacy History Project (LHP) components provides the basis for addressing the resistance teacher candidates often express with respect to the relevancy of the content literacy methods course for their own practice as future middle and high school teachers. Through a reflective examination of their prior experiences and present day practices, the authors found that pre-service teachers participating in the LHP gained insights into their own literate identities, made connections between their literate practices and the those of adolescent literacy learners, and demonstrated more complex understandings of the content literacy methods course content as it relates to the literacy development of their future students.