Today, more than six million of the nation’s secondary school students fall well short of grade-level expectations in reading and writing. Recognizing the urgency of this literacy crisis among middle and high school students, policymakers in all parts of the country have begun to implement a wide range of new programs and services designed to help struggling adolescent readers catch up in essential literacy skills, particularly reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. However—and as this report argues—if students are to be truly prepared for the sophisticated intellectual demands of college, work, and citizenship, then these reforms will not be enough. Even as their schools help them to catch up in the basics, students also must be taught the advanced literacy skills that will enable them to succeed in the academic content areas—particularly the core content areas of math, science, English, and history.

Over the past several years, education leaders and policymakers have come to understand that the nation needs to dramatically improve the literacy levels of its adolescents. But the policy discussion has focused, in large part, on the literacy needs of native English speaking students – to date, much less attention has gone to the specific challenges involved in teaching reading and writing to adolescents for whom English is not a first language. Commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York, written by Deborah Short and Shannon Fitzsimmons of the Center for Applied Linguistics, and published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, this report makes a powerful case for particular teaching practices and educational policies designed to help English language learners master the reading and writing skills they need to succeed in high school, college, and the workforce.

Reading Next is a cutting-edge report that combines the best research currently available with well-crafted strategies for turning that research into practice. Informed by five of the nation's leading researchers, Reading Next charts an immediate route to improving adolescent literacy. The authors outline 15 key elements of an effective literacy intervention, and call on public and private stakeholders to invest in the literacy of middle and high school students today, while simultaneously building the knowledge base.

NOTE: Print copies no longer available. Please download report in pdf format.

Examines the reliable, empirical research that exists on how to improve the literacy of children in grades four through 12. It brings together the key findings of the best available research on issues related to adolescent literacy. It also offers policymakers and the public a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that confront the nation as it begins to work to improve the literacy levels of older children. The report demonstrates that we already know a great deal about reading comprehension and about effective methods for helping students of all ages become better readers.

Helps to develop an understanding of what works in successful programs, as well as successful strategies for training effective literacy coaches.

Out of Print (Please see: From No Child Left Behind to Every Child a Graduate)

In 2002, the Alliance for Excellent Education published Every Child a Graduate, one of the first nationally focused efforts to draw attention to the problems in many of the country’s middle and high schools, and to encourage federal—as well as state and local—policy reform designed to improve student achievement and attainment. Since that report’s release, the knowledge base that informs what is known about both the problems and the ways to solve them has grown dramatically, thanks to the efforts of researchers and educators across the country.

In August 2008, the Alliance released From No Child Left Behind to Every Child a Graduate, which attempts to lay out a new framework for action to improve secondary schools that is based on this expanded pool of research and predicated on the recognition that, to be effective, reform must be comprehensive and systemic.