Adolescent Literacy (Updated) 
Fact Sheet
December 15, 2011
The nation's workforce is demanding ever more literate workers and citizens. As technology advances and the American economy grows increasingly knowledge based, individuals must be able to read, write, and communicate at higher levels in order to remain economic and social contributors. A student’s level of literacy is a critical determinant of success in secondary school and beyond. Currently, more than half of America’s secondary students struggle to read their textbooks and other course materials. Still, research demonstrates that adolescents’ literacy levels can improve with intensive, comprehensive instruction.
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Engineering Solutions to the National Crisis in Literacy: How to Make Good on the Promise of the Common Core State Standards Policy Brief
April 14, 2011
"Engineering Solutions to the National Crisis in Literacy: How to Make Good on the Promise of the Common Core State Standards" calls for federal support for state literacy plans aligned to English language arts common core standards to ensure that students, no matter where they live, develop the necessary competencies to graduate from high school ready for college and the modern workplace. The Common Core State Standards Initiative took a note from high-performing countries in developing these standards and set forth clear and ambitious benchmarks in literacy. This brief includes recommendations to leverage improvements in literacy skills from birth through grade twelve by providing systemic approaches, equitable resources, and strong teacher training.
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The Federal Role in Confronting the Crisis in Adolescent Literacy Policy Brief
September 20, 2010
Results from national reading assessments reveal that millions of young people leave high school without the advanced reading and writing skills required for career and college success. Young adults who lack reading and writing proficiency will likely be relegated to the ranks of unskilled workers in a world where literacy is an absolute precondition for success. The disastrous outcomes for portions of the student population by race, ethnicity, and income level reverberate through the nation’s educational system. Unless the nation makes a consistent investment toward delivering comprehensive reading and writing instruction throughout the pre-K–12 grade span, a large proportion of low-income students and students of color will remain sidelined from full participation in the modern workplace. While federal and state strategies have begun to focus on the adolescent literacy crisis, more than ever it is time to build upon these initial efforts. This policy brief describes the role that the federal government can play to advocate for a comprehensive, national, and schoolwide focus on K–12 literacy.
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Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading Report
April 14, 2010
Although some progress has been made in improving the literacy achievement of students in American high schools during the last twenty years, the majority of students still do not read or write well enough to meet grade-level demands. Poor literacy skills play a role in why many of these students do not complete high school. Among those who do graduate, many will not be ready for college or a career where reading and writing are required. These young people will find themselves at a serious disadvantage in successfully pursuing some form of higher education, securing a job that pays a living wage, or participating in social and civic activities. One often-overlooked tool for improving students’ reading, as well as their learning from text, is writing. This report identifies instructional practices in writing shown to improve students’ reading abilities and recommends ways that teachers can improve students’ reading skills through teaching writing.
Report
Press Release
April 14, 2010 Event
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Teaching for a New World: Preparing High School Educators to Deliver College- and Career-Ready Instruction Policy Brief
November 3, 2009
It is well established that teacher quality is one of the most significant school influences on student achievement. Unfortunately, it is less clear how teacher preparation programs can prepare and recruit effective educators for every classroom. As the global economy demands that all students are college and career ready after high school, teachers must be educated and supported to instruct to this higher standard. Despite pockets of excellence across the country in the ways teachers are prepared in both traditional and alternative routes, there is a need for a new, comprehensive vision. This brief offers a new conception for secondary teacher preparation that ensures candidates are able to prepare students for college and career success after high school, encourages a shift to the skills, knowledge, and competencies candidates should have once they become classroom teachers of record, highlights the need for improved teacher performance assessments and data systems, and contemplates how federal policy can support the realization of these goals.
November 3, 2009 Release Event
Press Release
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Informing Adolescent Literacy Policy and Practice: Lessons Learned from the Striving Readers Program Policy Brief
July 1, 2009
Although a growing body of research points to the critical need to foster reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills for students in order to ensure their success in college, careers, and life, these efforts have tended to focus more on developing literacy skills in the early years, often ignoring secondary students. The outcome has been undeniable: While the literacy skills of students in the primary grades have improved, achievement for middle and secondary students has remained virtually unchanged. The Striving Readers program is the main federal effort aimed at reversing these trends at the secondary school level. After the first year of implementation, the Alliance for Excellent Education convened representatives of seven of the Striving Readers projects. This policy brief takes a look their experiences as well as other research and strategies that have been successful in the field in order to assist in shaping the next phase of the federal effort in adolescent literacy. Recommendations are made for both program and policy in an attempt to promote a more cohesive and comprehensive adolescent literacy effort for secondary students.
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Seize the Moment: The Need for a Comprehensive Federal Investment in Adolescent Literacy Policy Brief
July 1, 2009
Although Congress has dedicated substantial funds over the past decade to improve reading skills for struggling students in kindergarten through grade three, this targeted investment has not resulted in the final goal—ensuring students leave high school prepared for college and careers. In fact, six out of twenty-two million of America’s middle and high school students are struggling readers. Educators are now beginning to recognize that the teaching of reading and writing cannot end at third grade; children need intensive, high-quality literacy instruction before they enter kindergarten until the time they graduate after twelfth grade. This brief examines the adolescent literacy crisis and why literacy really does matter, especially at the secondary level. Student needs are outlined to inform the implementation of quality literacy programs and federal policy recommendations are made to encourage the federal government to advocate for a comprehensive, national, schoolwide focus on adolescent literacy.
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A Profile of the Striving Readers Program: The Memphis School District Project (TN) Case Study
July 2009
In 2006, Memphis City Schools was awarded $16,074,687 for a five-year period (2006–11) for the Memphis Striving Readers Project, in collaboration with the University of Memphis and Bellarmine University (KY). It employs the Memphis Content Literacy Academy model as a schoolwide strategy and Scholastic’s READ 180 for targeted intervention. The project serves more than five thousand students in eight middle schools.
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A Profile of the Striving Readers Program: The Springfield/Chicopee School, Massachusetts, Districts Project Case Study
July 2009
In 2006, Springfield Public Schools and Chicopee Public Schools were awarded $16,655,483 over five years for the Springfield/Chicopee Striving Readers Project. Both districts are located in southwestern Massachusetts and have a history of partnering on initiatives to improve student achievement. The Strategic Instruction Model Content Enhancement Routines for Teachers (SIM-CERT), developed by the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas, was used as a whole-school intervention strategy in the five participating high schools. For targeted interventions, Scholastic’s READ 180 and the University of Kansas’s Xtreme Reading were both implemented. The project originally targeted seven thousand students in grades 9–11, and has since expanded to serve twelfth graders, as capacity has allowed.
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Federal Support for Adolescent Literacy: A Solid Investment Issue Briefs
June 12, 2007
In March 2007, legislation was introduced in the U.S. House and Senate to authorize the Striving Readers program, designed to support high-quality reading and writing instruction for millions of students in grades 4–12. But skeptics may wonder: Is there sufficient research to justify a major new federal investment in this area? As this Issue Brief shows, there have been significant findings related to instruction in grades 4-12, the knowledge base on adolescent literacy continues to expand, and the research does indeed provide a solid foundation for effective policymaking.
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Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement Report
June 12, 2007
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.
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Making Writing Instruction a Priority in America’s Middle and High Schools Issue Brief
April 1, 2007
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about a quarter of the nation’s middle and high school students are proficient in writing. Even among students who plan to go to college, roughly a third fall short of readiness benchmarks for college-level writing composition. Yet, the ability to write plays an increasingly important role both in the workplace and everyday life, and while previous generations of students might have been able to get by without strong literacy skills, today’s adolescents cannot afford to leave high school without being able to write clear, compelling texts, for a variety of purposes and audiences. This Policy Brief offers a succinct overview of the data on student writing achievement, the need for more and better writing instruction, and a number of ways in which policymakers can support school improvement in this area.
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Urgent but Overlooked: The Literacy Crisis Among Adolescent English Language Learners Issue Brief
February 1, 2007
America’s secondary schools enroll roughly two million English language learners (ELLs), students whose proficiency in spoken and/or written English is not yet strong enough to permit them to succeed in an English-language classroom setting without extra support. These students comprise the fastest-growing segment of the middle and high school population, with enrollments soaring in almost every part of the country. However, while ELLs may be growing in numbers, in other respects they are being left behind—as a group, they are among the country’s lowest-performing students, scoring far below the national average on the reading portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This Issue Brief reviews the existing research on literacy instruction for adolescent ELLs and describes a number of challenges and priorities for policymakers to consider.
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Double the Work: Challenges and Solutions to Acquiring Language and Academic Literacy for Adolescent English Language Learners Report
November 2, 2006
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.
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Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools Report
October 19, 2006
Along with reading comprehension, writing skill is a predictor of academic success and a basic requirement for participation in civic life and in the global economy. Yet every year in the United States, large numbers of adolescents graduate from high school unable to write at the basic levels required by colleges and employers. Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools, commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York and published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, discusses eleven specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help improve the writing abilities of the country’s 4th- to 12th-grade students.
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Why the Crisis in Adolescent Literacy Demands a National Response Issue Brief
June 18, 2006
Over the past four decades, Congress has directed substantial resources toward improving young children’s literacy skills, and that investment has grown significantly in recent years. Through initiatives such as Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (better known as the No Child Left Behind Act), Reading First, and Head Start, the federal government has spent billions of dollars promoting vital research and improved reading instruction in the home, in preschool settings, and during the first few years of elementary school. As long as millions of young readers continue to struggle, this work should remain a high priority.
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Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy Report
June 11, 2006
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.
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Reading and Writing in the Academic Content Areas Issue Brief
June 1, 2006
For years, the nation’s education policymakers have spotlighted the importance of literacy instruction in grades K–3, where students develop the basic reading skills upon which they will build their future academic success. Now that federal and state investments in early literacy are starting to pay off—with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showing significant gains on fourth grade reading scores, especially among poor and minority students—it is time to shine the light upon the urgent literacy needs of older students.
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Improving Adolescent Literacy in Arizona: A Report to the Governor’s P20 Council Report
December 8, 2005
Over the last few decades, an enormous amount of attention has been directed toward the reading difficulties of America’s young children. For instance, researchers have engaged in countless skirmishes over the relative merits of phonics and whole-language instruction in grades K–3. Pundits have lamented over and over again the fact that Johnny still can’t read. And federal policymakers have made greater and greater investments in Title I, with its heavy emphasis on teaching reading in the elementary schools.
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Improving Adolescent Literacy (Commentary by Bob Wise) Opinion Piece
National Association of Elementary School Principals Newsletter
September 2005, Volume 14, Number 1
For all the headlines devoted to the so-called “reading wars” during the past few decades, and for all the recent
federal and state investment in research-based reading programs, the nation’s education policy-makers have
only just begun to take a serious, sustained interest in the literacy needs of students in the middle grades.
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Adolescent Literacy: Opening the Doors to Success Issue Brief
January 1, 2005
Over the years, educational research has provided important insights into how children learn to read. In the last decade, it also has been influential in helping to create new programs, teaching practices, and policies that support the goal of all children reading well by the end of third grade. Yet, while most researchers would agree that early reading is important, the unfortunate truth remains that millions of middle and high school students are still struggling to read long after their third-grade year is over.
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How to Know a Good Adolescent Literacy Program When You See One Issue Brief
May 1, 2004
While more research needs to be done in the area of adolescent literacy, there is growing agreement about some of the characteristics successful literacy intervention programs share. The purpose of this brief is to provide information to help policymakers, educators, parents, and others concerned with adolescent literacy make informed decisions about literacy programs for struggling readers and the programs' suitability for specific groups of students. The brief is not intended for an audience of literacy experts, and does not pretend to offer a comprehensive program evaluation guide; rather, it is designed to help decisionmakers ask the right questions when assessing literacy programs for selection for federal, state, and local funding.
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Reading for the 21st Century: Adolescent Literacy Teaching and Learning Strategies Issue Brief
January 1, 2004
Young people need to develop strong literacy skills to communicate effectively, gain respect from peers and authority, participate in their communities in a meaningful way, and fully contribute to society. Building literacy, therefore, goes far beyond improving a child’s ability to read and write. It speaks to the larger societal issues of access and equity. In our society, being literate opens doors, allowing one to access power, and in many cases, helps to level the playing field. However, approximately 1 in 4 young people are struggling to read and comprehend grade level textbooks and subject matter materials as they enter middle and high school.
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Adolescents and Literacy: Reading for the 21st Century Report
November 10, 2003
NOTE: Print copies no longer available. Click on the link above to 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.
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The Literacy Coach: A Key to Improving Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools Report
November 9, 2003
Helps to develop an understanding of what works in successful programs, as well as successful strategies for training effective literacy coaches.
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