Weaving the threads of literacy: how a concerted district approach with coherent strategies can strengthen adolescent readers.

We can see the holes that exist in the fabric of our schools whether we are looking at test scores, dropout rates or the eyes of a teenager who pretends not to care anymore. That student's apparent lack of interest in school often is communicating a continuing struggle to learn.

All of these signs are tied to reading, whether we note specific problems in math, science, social studies, English or other subjects.

Clearly, having adolescent students who are not successful readers is not a new problem, but being accountable for the performance of these students is a relatively new pressure that school districts and schools face. In this time of high accountability and sanctions from the No Child Left Behind legislation, educational leaders face questions about how to help the significant population of struggling readers in middle and high school classrooms. In communities large and small, educators are seeking resources, materials and instructional practices that can turn struggling adolescent readers into successful and well-performing students.

As a district leader, you may be asking: If these students haven't caught on by now, how can we help them catch up? The answer is with targeted attention using appropriate strategies in all their content classes and in pullout reading programs. The next question: How can district leaders make that happen beyond isolated classrooms? The answer again is with targeted, appropriate attention, but this time we are talking about district leaders and teachers coming together to recognize the problems, share solutions, agree on a plan of attack and work together to meet the needs of these struggling students.

Setting the Stage

The first step district leaders must take to improve their students' reading performance is to establish shared beliefs about best practices for supporting readers in each content area. Teams of educators must consider the characteristics of students attending the district's schools, their current academic performance and the unique needs of this specific student population.

An example of a district that has successfully undertaken this process is the Park Hill School District in Kansas City, Mo. Park Hill leaders began their reading improvement process by selecting several informative books on the teaching of reading. Staff members read the books in jigsaw style, sharing information about their book with others who read different books. District officials felt that this step was important to help everyone begin with a common language for building a customized, comprehensive reading program.

As the information gathering progressed, the staff identified beliefs and practices for each state reading standard that would meet the needs of their student population. From this research, staff members identified the core of their reading instruction philosophy. The core components focused on reading selection, word development, independent reading, writing and reading aloud to students.

Using that foundation, staff members developed a literacy instruction framework that identified the appropriate strategies for each grade level, broken down into the five instructional categories. This framework, tied directly to state standards, specified the amount of time teachers should be devoting to the various components and provided specific guidance on the skills and strategies that should be used to meet the goals of each standard.

Continuing Support

Once district philosophies and performance standards have been established, as in Park Hill, it is important that the district provide ongoing support and focused training that teachers can immediately transfer back to content instruction. Such strong district support and focused, job-embedded professional development is essential to school and district academic performance.

In the past, reading professional development often was organized around one-shot workshops or daylong in-service presentations on specific topics such as vocabulary strategies or reading comprehension techniques. Teachers attended the workshop and received information, but there was little accountability for actually implementing any strategies or techniques when they returned to their classrooms.

A greater emphasis on individual as well as collective accountability for student performance is now recognized as a more lasting form of professional development. The National Staff Development Council in Oxford, Ohio, has identified effective professional development as being system-focused, results-driven and job-embedded. In their book A New Vision for Staff Development, Dennis Sparks and Stephanie Hirsh describe this movement as a shift from a fragmented emphasis on the development of the individual to a clear, coherent district plan based on student needs and learning outcomes. Sparks and Hirsh, executives at the National Staff Development Council, say training conducted away from the classroom should shift to multiple forms of job-embedded learning.

District leaders can approach that job-embedded learning by emphasizing the strategies that have proven effective with students. An analysis of the research literature by a subgroup of the National Reading Panel, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in 2000 observed that students in grades 7-12 can greatly benefit from teaching students to use effective reading strategies with their content area textbooks. Some strategies that experts advocate teaching directly to students are rehearsing (underlining and taking notes); elaborating (taking notes by paraphrasing text, forming a visual mental image, creating an analogy and summarizing material); organizing (outlining and mapping concepts); and comprehension skills (monitoring meaning, self-questioning and connecting background knowledge).

To provide teacher training and job-embedded learning, Park Hill district leaders identified a literacy cadre, which was made up of outstanding teachers who received intensive instruction in the key reading focus areas. Cadre teachers shared effective techniques and practices with their peers during summer reading academies, led teacher book groups and provided intensive continuing support and site-based training in their home schools. Teachers in all grades also received their own personal copies of the key instructional strategy books. District leaders and cadre members wanted teachers to have their own copies of the books so they could write in them and take notes as they learned.

Gina Chambers, Park Hill's assistant superintendent of academic services, said early measures of student performance indicate the changes are paying off for the district. She also noted that district middle and high schools have requested that a content reading framework be developed for them that will complement what the elementary schools have begun. The district will soon be repeating the process to identify best practices and develop a literacy framework for grades 6 to 12.

Carrying the best practices of teaching reading across the content areas can be a challenge. Middle and high school teachers often express frustration at having to learn to teach reading to students on top of their other content responsibilities. With the proper training, they will understand that teaching students how to read, process and organize their thoughts is not so much about teaching students how to read but more about providing students with the appropriate strategies to read the content information and learn it. We must help all content teachers understand how to foster these qualities in their students and clarify their own role in the process.

Preparing teachers over time to use techniques for before, during and after reading in content-area classrooms can greatly improve student performance in middle and high schools. Of course, if district leaders are going to promote these effective reading strategies, they need to know what to look for in the classroom.

Thinking Ahead

Before content teachers ask students to read textbook materials, they should help students think about what they are going to read and activate their background knowledge relative to the topic. These techniques help get students ready to read and help them understand such concepts as: Why am I reading this? How will the information be used? Will I be expected to take a test, write a report or compare this information to other information? How do I read to prepare for this purpose? How is the text organized? What do I already know (or think I know) about the topic? What do I predict I might learn from this text?

One before-reading strategy, the anticipation guide, has been around for a long time in reading circles, but it is still a new concept for content-area teachers. Anticipation guides ask students prior to reading to predict whether 10 to 15 given statements on a topic are true or false. After reading, students compare their predictions with facts found in the text.

Some examples of before-reading stimulators include graphic organizers such as Venn diagrams, compare-contrast charts, semantic feature charts or KWL charts, which ask what students already know, want to know and have learned (after reading). Study guides that ask students to fill in the blanks as they read also can be helpful in identifying key information.

The possibilities of how these prereading techniques and others can be used in content classrooms are endless (see additional resources, page 22). Helping teachers identify and actively use strong prereading strategies appropriate to the content area can greatly enhance student interest as well as build solid reading comprehension and performance.

Deeper Understanding

Making meaning is what reading is all about. Content-area teachers need to help students learn to monitor their own comprehension while reading. Teachers can model for students how to ask questions by demonstrating with a short passage on the overhead and simultaneously verbalizing their own thinking. For example, teachers might ask: Did what I just read make sense? Do I need to reread that paragraph to better understand that idea? Does that seem right? Does that match with what I already know or have already read?

Another strategy for helping students increase their comprehension during reading is by providing sticky notes that students place at important or confusing points in the text while reading. At a signal from the teacher, small groups of students discuss their questions and clarify their thoughts.

Providing consistent note-taking procedures for students in a school also can enhance student comprehension during reading. Although there are many acceptable formats for note taking, it is helpful if the entire staff can agree on one method that will be used across all classes in the school.

Thinking Back

According to research, one of the strongest ways to ensure that students thoroughly understand text is by asking them to summarize what they have read. Unfortunately, most teachers seldom use this strategy. Completing graphic organizers or some type of visual display is also a strong technique for students to demonstrate what they have learned.

Effective teachers also ask students to use the information in more complex ways, such as by developing projects, creating plays or otherwise using the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy to display what they have learned. To ensure students have grasped the passage's main ideas, teachers can ask them to talk through the key ideas and demonstrate their understanding of the information.

This focus on higher-level learning can show tangible results, because most state assessments require students to analyze or interpret aspects of a specific text. Therefore, classroom instruction should consistently emphasize the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy, which are application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation, rather than the lower levels, which are knowledge and comprehension. When instruction regularly focuses on the higher levels, students are more comfortable answering similar questions on state constructed-response test items.

Improving adolescent reading performance from a teacher's perspective is about helping students learn to glean meaning from content texts, organize their thinking, ask questions and share their thoughts with others. It is about creating lessons that maximize what students already bring to the classroom and about helping them find relevance and meaning that can connect to their own lives.

Improving reading performance from a district leader's perspective is not about finding the right program but about helping teachers approach instruction in ways that build content reading comprehension and share those strategies with their colleagues. When the responsibility for fostering strong reading instruction is shared across all content areas of the school and across the district, it can truly make a difference for students. If we combine all the threads of instruction so that they support deeper understanding, then the resulting fabric of learning can stand the test of time for our students.

Resources

Karen Tankersley suggests these books and articles dealing with teaching reading to adolescents:

* Beating the Odds: Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well by Judith A. Langer, National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement, SUNY Albany

* Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12: Reinforcing the Threads of Reading by Karen Tankersley, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Va.

* Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, Stenhouse Publishers, York, Maine 

* Struggling Adolescent Readers: A Collection of Teaching Strategies edited by David W. Moore, Donna E. Alvermann and Kathleen A. Hinchman, International Reading Association, Newark, Del.

* When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.

* "When Older Students Can't Read" by Louisa C. Moats, Educational Leadership, March 2001

* "You Can't Learn Much From Books You Can't Read," by Richard L. Allington, Educational Leadership, November 2002

Karen Tankersley is a consultant and reading specialist and the author of Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12: Reinforcing the Threads of Reading. She can be reached at P.O. Box 6994, Glendale, AZ 85312. E-mail: Karen@ threadsofreading.com

RELATED ARTICLE: Handling special challenges.

School district planning and professional development for teachers of adolescent readers need to include the skills to deal with three main types of learners who require special reading attention.

* The Struggling Reader.

Student snapshot: The typical struggling reader can read but chooses not to read. This student can function moderately within regular classrooms, but his reading is laborious and slow. He becomes easily frustrated with long text passages and may simply give up on the task

If he does make an effort to read, he has little comprehension about the text. Each year, as the texts grow more difficult and the demands become higher, he falls further behind his peers.

Because reading is a painful task he avoids it whenever he can. This avoidance behavior creates a further downward spiral in reading ability and exacerbates the struggle. Most of what he learns comes through listening attentively in class. Students at this level make up the vast majority of problem readers that teachers face in classrooms all across the country.

Strategies: The needs of the struggling reader can be met by highly skilled classroom content teachers who understand how to help students connect with content reading materials. Teachers should understand how to use before, during and after reading strategies to support struggling readers. Students should be encouraged to talk about text in small groups so that misunderstandings or questions can be clarified immediately. While these strategies benefit all types of readers, they provide the extra support needed by less-able readers.

District leaders can help by making sure that literacy coaches or reading specialists are available to model and coach teachers directly within the classroom setting. Professional development should be provided in small segments so teachers can ask questions, practice new strategies and then talk with their coaches about the results.

When teachers understand how to solve the problems of the students they have, they then can apply that knowledge with future students. And when teachers see the link between the problems they face and the instructional strategies they use, the impact of professional development becomes more permanent.

* A Reader With Severe Disabilities.

Student snapshot: The highly disabled reader is an older student who is unable to read any text written above the primary level. She has difficulty decoding text and has minimal comprehension skills. Her oral reading may be tortured and halting. Her vocabulary and background knowledge is limited.

A large percentage of these students come from limited-English or high-poverty backgrounds. Many highly disabled readers also have some type of learning disability or learning disadvantage, such as coming from a country where school attendance is not a priority. Because they have limited success in the classroom, many become behavior problems or simply drop out of school altogether in their high school years.

Strategies: These students are often the most challenging for content area teachers because they do not have the skills to do grade-appropriate work. The needs of the highly disabled reader cannot be met only within the regular classroom. These students may need 150 to 300 hours of intensive instruction over a 1- to 3-year time frame from a highly trained reading specialist. Without this intensive help, these students are not likely to ever become proficient readers.

District officials need to be sure they hire the right teachers for these roles. Teachers of these supplementary programs need specialized knowledge, such as a reading endorsement, to diagnose specific reading problems and remediate those particular issues.

Schools also face challenges in scheduling these remedial classes. Administrators should find ways of providing this specialized support as an additional period or a "double dose" that students attend on a daily basis. If remedial support is used as a replacement for other content, students can get further behind. Furthermore, if they are taken out of a class they really enjoy, that can hurt motivation for learning even further. Administrators must be creative to find ways to schedule a double dose of reading without impacting the rest of the student's content areas.

* The Advanced Reader.

Student snapshot. The advanced reader has insight into the content beyond the level of his peers. He tends to select complicated texts to read, finding less-complex content boring. He has a well-developed vocabulary because of his wide reading and other background knowledge.

Advanced readers can be helpful participants during discussions by providing insights and connections that other students do not grasp. Still others can be demanding and challenging, sometimes correcting the teacher or demanding proof to support the teacher's statements or interpretations.

Strategies: Teachers can help these students excel by exposing them to higher-order activities, such as comparing and contrasting different authors, or creating adaptations or variations such as diaries or plays. Teachers can also allow advanced students the freedom to select topics of interest in the content area for more in-depth study.

District officials can ensure that teachers receive professional development in strategies that help these students connect their worldly knowledge, apply it and interpret content at a much higher level than their peers. These students thrive on challenges to think more deeply and synthesize information. Teachers should allow these students more freedom in selecting reading materials that interest them.

During classroom discussions, teachers have to be careful not to be defensive when gifted students contradict them or question their interpretations. Instead, teachers should be open to the student's perspective and seek to understand the connections the student may be making. The well-prepared teacher will ask questions that challenge the student to think through his view and show why he formed that conclusion.

--Karen Tankersley

RELATED ARTICLE: Motivating reluctant adolescent readers.

BY DORI VETO 

Now that policymakers are turning their focus to the distinct needs of struggling adolescent readers, research is pointing to specific strategies to help students in grades 6-12 at this highly important juncture in their education.

Pinpointing the content and pedagogically sound teaching strategies that motivate and retain the interest of adolescent students while engaging them in the reading process has been the objective of a team of curriculum experts at Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. In addition to extensive formal and informal research with teachers, reviewers, consultants and students, the curriculum team examined the latest study on adolescent literacy titled "Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy." The report, developed by the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, delineates 15 components of effective literacy instruction for adolescent students.

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill has used the research findings to build a new reading intervention program that is being tested in more than 35 pilot sites nationwide.

Five Strategies

Based on the initial research and feedback from teachers, a team of curriculum experts have defined five main aspects that accelerate growth in reading and comprehension skills in struggling adolescent readers:

* Providing high-interest, age-appropriate texts.

Research has found that boys benefit when they are provided with a wide selection of text types to choose. For example, boys gravitate toward nonfiction and text with visuals because of the connections these texts cause the reader to make with the world.

However, research also cautions teachers against perpetuating stereotypes by providing only typically "masculine" reading materials. Boys do cross over to read texts that may not be traditionally thought of as masculine works. The selections in the pilot program provide all students with a wide range of text types focused on topics that are highly engaging and motivating to read.

Teachers in the pilot programs believe the age-appropriate content eliminates the feeling by students they are doing work designed for much younger students and helps the adolescents feel successful and more confident.

* Leveraging technology.

Most adolescents today are easily engaged and comfortable with online learning programs. Using the Internet provides students with round-the-clock access to lessons so work can be performed in the classroom, during after-school programs, at the library or at home.

This availability helps accelerate learning and provides parents and guardians a firsthand understanding of what the student is learning. Online lessons are enhanced with additional information provided through video or audio clips.

* Offering choices to students.

Choice is a proven motivator for reluctant readers who seem to need even more motivation. Offering a variety of content to students so they can easily move to an area or topic that interests them reduces the risk of disengaging the student with text they personally find uninteresting. Having choices naturally promotes intrinsic motivation to learn the content and empowers the student to take control of his or her own learning.

* Targeting instruction.

Each reader is different and learns at a different pace. It is critical to map a student's progress and provide feedback in a timely manner to accelerate the learning process. An online, diagnostic test can place the student in the appropriate level. In addition, the Learner Management System enables the teacher to see quickly what skills the student might be lacking. The teacher can differentiate instruction and target the remediation.

The flexibility of an ongoing, online formative assessment tool allows a student to take a pre-test to demonstrate proficiency in a skill. This acceleration component affords intervention students to move through the program at their own pace and target instruction to their individual needs. This enables readers to experience success at their own pace and access lessons appropriate to their skill level, another proven motivator for reluctant readers.

At a pilot site using the Glencoe/McGraw-Hill's Jamestown Reading Navigator program, educators at a juvenile justice center in Florida have found self-paced instruction targeted to individual student needs is helping their students prepare for the GED and for employment.

* Accessing books and magazines.

No one lives his or her entire life in front of a computer so it is important to supplement online reading lessons with printed texts that students can read independently in the classroom or at home. The intervention program includes two high-interest, print-based components that allow for the opportunity to transfer skills from online to print. This exposure to different types of reading circumstances helps students adapt to a reading-centered world. The content of these texts is crucial.

Dori Veto is marketing manager for Jamestown Education at Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 130 E. Randolph St., Chicago, IL 60601. E-mail: [e-mail]