Improving adolescent literacy

The goal of this practice guide is to formulate specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations that educators can use to improve literacy levels among adolescents in upper elementary, middle, and high schools. The target audience is teachers and other school personnel with direct contact with students, such as coaches, counselors, and principals. The guide includes specific recommendations for educators and the quality of evidence that supports these recommendations. The first three recommendations are strategies that classroom teachers can incorporate into their instruction to help students gain more from their reading tasks in content-area classes. The fourth recommendation offers strategies for improving student motivation for and engagement with learning. Together, the recommendations are designed to address the literacy needs of all adolescent learners. The fifth recommendation refers specifically to adolescent struggling readers, those students whose poor literacy skills weaken their ability to make sense of written material. Four appendixes are included: (1) Postscript from the Institute of Education Sciences; (2) About the Authors; (3) Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest; and (4) Technical Information on the Studies. (Contains 161 footnotes and 2 tables.).