a second chance to learn to read.

The Second Chance Reading program targets middle and high school students with reading deficits.

The Torrance Unified School District shares with many districts the characteristic of generally high reading achievement, with only pockets of poor performance. At the high school level the average reading scores are at the 49th percentile of national norms. Because most students read adequately, it is difficult to make secondary reading instruction a priority. Nevertheless, we have identified 30 percent of our high school students and 17 percent of our middle school students who score below the 30th percentile on state reading tests.

For these 2,597 students, the prognosis for success in our system is poor, and options for higher education and careers will be severely limited. These are the students targeted by the Second Chance Reading program, which was developed by Beverly Showers in collaboration with teachers at Morse High School in San Diego.

The purpose of the Second Chance Reading course is the rapid acceleration of the rates at which students read and comprehend both fiction and non-fiction textual materials. The course is designed for middle and high school students who are reading two or more years below grade level. The goal is to remediate existing reading deficits and prepare students for successful completion of secondary-level academic work, a goal that reflects our district's mission statement.

The course incorporates a number of strands:

1. Students engage in extensive reading at their recreational level. For the most part, students are allowed to choose the books they read, with appropriate guidance from teachers regarding level of difficulty.

2. Students work extensively on vocabulary development because an expanded vocabulary is highly correlated with reading comprehension. Students work both on mastery of sight vocabulary as well as on increased competence in the use of structural analysis and context clues for attacking new vocabulary.

3. Students address comprehension on multiple levels. The initial focus is on fluency, which is dependent on reading practice. Specific instructional strategies focus on both lower-order and higher-order comprehension in students' independent reading and in the more developmentally appropriate material in "read-alouds."

4. In Second Chance, writing is used primarily as an assist to comprehension. Students write brief summaries of the books they read independently, and through a collaborative writing process called "dictated writing" work with their teacher to address higher-order comprehension objectives.

Some key elements in this program include independent reading in school and at home, building vocabulary through reading, modeling what good readers do, and direct instruction of comprehension strategies. Engaging students through social interaction using cooperative structures seems to aid both learning and motivation.

Good reading programs call upon students to generate new ideas or connections about the meaning of what they are reading. The combination of targeted instruction for the group, individualized instruction and cooperative work is designed to keep students with a history of failure in reading highly engaged with reading tasks.

Staff development

Two characteristics of secondary schools influenced the design of our Second Chance staff development program. First, most secondary teachers have not been trained in the teaching of reading, and this was true of many of our teachers who agreed to teach the Second Chance course.

Second, that reading instruction legitimately belongs in the secondary curriculum is not universally accepted by secondary teachers and administrators. The bulk of staff development was focused on the need for training, but some efforts were directed at secondary administrators whose support and facilitation would be instrumental in the implementation of a secondary reading program.

Staff development for teachers in the Second Chance program was provided in three areas: instructional strategies, collaborative planning and development and course management. Training in instructional strategies included theory, demonstrations and practice of all strategies to be used in the course. Collaborative planning and development were modeled with the entire group and then practiced in small groups, and course management was explained in lecture and writing.

While principals were always welcome at all sessions, they generally attended the sessions that included planning and consultation with them. We asked for administrative assistance in ordering instructional and test materials, in scheduling of classes and time for collaborative planning for the teachers of those classes, and in record-keeping. The administration of Second Chance is a cooperative enterprise between site administrators and central office staff.

Finally, the trainer and administrators visited classes together to observe first-hand teacher reports of successes and problems and to determine material and future training needs. Site administrators were provided program checklists to facilitate their understanding of what they were seeing in classrooms.

Monitoring growth

We made it clear from the beginning that several types of data would be collected, explaining how it would be analyzed and soliciting the agreement of teachers. Students were administered a pre- and post-test using the reading section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Teachers also completed a spreadsheet on all students, listing the numbers of books they had read, new vocabulary words mastered, their attendance and course grade, and their ethnicity and ESL or special education designations.

Collecting data to monitor progress is, of course, an intervention in itself. Successes can be celebrated, conversations among teachers, students and parents are transformed by the specificity inherent in data, and teachers and administrators can examine the impact of the intervention on subgroups of students.

Since the program is just beginning at several middle schools in the district, we have limited our discussion of growth to the district's high schools. Student growth in reading for all high school students in the program was 1.3 grade level equivalents. (For more information about improvements in reading scores and what we learned, see "WHAT WE LEARNED").

Implementation challenges

Our main implementation challenges dealt with issues of time, administrative support, use of new teaching strategies and student identification and motivation.

Carving out time

The issue of time is multifaceted. There is the challenge of finding time in the school's schedule for a new course, as well as in the student's schedule. Because initially there was no teacher allocated to teach reading, schools had to carve a section out of the regular English program day for the course. After the successes experienced the first year, however, a teacher was allocated to each high school. Students who needed the program were enrolled in the class, eliminating another class in their schedule. For most ninth graders, it meant not taking a foreign language or another elective during their freshman year.

Time for training was also a challenge. Three days of paid teacher time was allocated for summer training, followed by four days of training during the year, with substitutes covering the teachers' classes. The time together during the year was essential to answer questions, provide reinforcement of teaching strategies and develop lessons.

It is recommended that two teachers at each school work together. A common planning period provides a great opportunity for the two teachers to plan lessons together and to divide some of the work. When a common planning period wasn't possible, teachers worked out other ways to have time to plan together, like a Thursday brown bag lunch.

Administrative support

Administrative support was another important ingredient that contributed to the success of the program. Principals provided a room for the reading class. Bookshelves and books were provided by the district. (It's important to have plenty of books at various reading levels that are interesting to students.)

Principals and assistant principals became familiar with the program, understanding what they might see students and the teacher doing in a Second Chance Reading classroom. They talked with counselors about the program and helped them identify students who needed the course. The assistant superintendent in charge of high schools attended training sessions and helped provide for teachers' needs as they arose.

Teaching strategies

Volumes have been written about the difficulty of changing classroom practice. Teachers in the Second Chance Reading program had to master many new teaching strategies, and implementation of those strategies in classroom instruction continues to vary widely from classroom to classroom. When teachers report difficulty with a strategy or when observations identify the absence of strategies, followup training time is provided. This issue is not unique to this program, but we have provided ongoing support and follow-up to teachers to address concerns.

Placement of students

Students were targeted for placement in Second Chance if they were reading two or more grades below level. We started by serving primarily ninth-grade students, who read at a level between third and seventh grade. We told the students and their parents that they were reading below grade level, and that we felt we could help them become better readers if they were willing to work at it.

Needless to say, many of the students assigned to Second Chance were less than thrilled with the placement. In this course, teachers attempted to build student motivation in a number of ways. They began by trying to develop a sense of partnership with the students, conveying the message, "We're in this together. You have some choices. You'll have to work, but I'm here to help."

The fact that students may select their own independent reading books is motivating to many students. Initially, the teacher guides students through the process of picking interesting books at the right level. The teacher also reviews test data with students so they can see their progress. Students are expected to take responsibility for their growth. This straightforward, collaborative approach to students' reading skills appears to be motivational for many adolescents.

A good beginning

In Torrance Unified, we believe we have made a good beginning in addressing the issue of reading instruction for secondary students with poor reading skills. The Second Chance program appears to rapidly accelerate the development of reading skills for students reading two or more years below grade level. Secondary teachers have volunteered to teach the course, thus committing themselves to extensive training and data collection, and many administrators have enthusiastically supported the program. In the continuing effort to address literacy problems at all levels, we are encouraged by our early efforts in the often overlooked secondary curriculum.

WHAT WE LEARNED

Student growth in Second Chance was highly correlated with teacher implementation of the program. The students of teachers who implemented Second Chance with high fidelity scored an average of 1.8 grade-level equivalents per year (students were tested on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills), while the students of low-implementing teachers grew an average of .7 grade-level equivalents during a year.

Since the mean reading score of students entering the program was 6.5, the growth represented a substantial acceleration for students in the program. An accelerated growth rate is essential, as high school students with poor reading skills no longer have the luxury of "normal" growth (a year's growth for a year's instruction). We are encouraged by our initial experiences in teaching reading to secondary students.

What works

We have learned that many of the elements in a good secondary reading program are aligned with what we believe works with elementary children. We also learned that:

* High school teachers unfamiliar with teaching reading were nevertheless able to quickly develop their expertise.

* Working collaboratively was a good way to develop lessons specific to students' needs and interests.

* Collaboration also enabled teachers to hone their understanding of processes and strategies.

* Collecting data helped everyone acknowledge the growth that occurred.

* Reading improves when students read many books, Reading practice develops fluency and vocabulary and provides an arena for the application of comprehension strategies. While it is impossible to know if our students have developed a "reading habit," we have been gratified by their reports of increased confidence and enjoyment with respect to reading.

Nancy Raiche is director of curriculum for Torrance Unified School District. Beverly Showers is a consultant in staff development and school renewal.