1. A Summary of the Report: What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy
Report developed by:
National Institute for Literacy
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Department of Education
Summary prepared by:
teachers of
Kinston High School

2. Introduction
Staggering statistic: 8.7 million fourth –twelfth graders struggle with reading and writing tasks
Ongoing difficulties illustrate need for literacy instruction beyond elementary years
Middle and high school teachers have difficulty providing literacy instruction in addition to content

3. Key Literacy Components
Decoding/phonemic awareness and phonics
Morphology
Vocabulary
Fluency
Text comprehension

4. Purpose of the Report
To make content-area teachers “more aware of the literacy skills that skilled readers possess and recognize when students struggle with these foundational skills”
Not intended to suggest that content-area teachers focus on developing these foundational skills in context of content-area classroom, but instead to suggest need for more intensive instruction with a reading specialist

5. Decoding
Word identification refers to the ability to decipher a particular word out of a group of letters correctly
Phonemic awareness is required for decoding; it is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds called phonemes
Phonemic awareness instruction is most beneficial at kindergarten and first grade level; it leads to greater articulation of unfamiliar words later
Phonics is also required for decoding; it is the understanding of the relationship between the letters in the written word and the sounds of these words when spoken.
Phonics is used as the basis for reading and writing; it helps students to recognize words and decode new ones

6. Good Readers: Decoding
Have conscious understanding of individual sounds, or phonemes
Make many sound connections at the syllable level by recognizing chunks such as re-, pro-, -tion, and –ment
Use their knowledge of letters and sounds to pronounce unknown words
Draw on their own listening and speaking vocabularies to relate to new words

7. Challenges of Decoding: Adolescents
Approximately 10% struggle with decoding
Based on research, students who are not successful reading words that are unfamiliar to them most likely struggle with phonemic awareness skills
Studies suggest that the deficit of phonemic awareness may be responsible for dyslexia
Since students in fifth grade and beyond encounter 10,000 more new words each year, it is crucial for them to have decoding skills to tackle unfamiliar multi-syllabic words
Poor phonics skills negatively affects reading comprehension and reading vocabulary

8. Instruction for Decoding: Adolescent Readers
Should emphasize syllable patterns and morphology
Should integrate decoding skills with classroom lessons and assigned texts
Should focus on content specific vocabulary like osmosis and perimeter and academic vocabulary like examine and cause

9. Strategy 1- Decoding Instruction Model phonemic awareness skills when introducing new vocabulary
Focus on identification of rhyming words, blending isolated sounds to form words, and segmentation of a word into sounds
Demonstrate how the change of one phoneme changes a word like revolution, resolution, and evolution

10. Strategy 2- Decoding Providing instruction in phonics strategies helps students articulate and identify multi-syllabic words
Teachers should determine content-area words that would pose difficulty for students
Articulate each syllable slowly, pausing between each syllable, repeat several times
Point out patterns in pronunciation and spelling of prefixes, suffixes, and vowels in words
Point out differences among words that belong to word families (define, definitely, definition)

11. Strategy 2- Decoding cont’d.
Demonstrate using new and difficult words in different contexts
Provide opportunities for students to practice using and pronouncing words
Ask open-ended questions that require students to use new or difficult words

12. Strategy 3- Decoding Use direct, explicit, and systematic instruction to teach phonemic awareness and phonics skills
(Most appropriately delivered by a reading specialist)
Explain, demonstrate, and model the skill with content-area words, relate to subject
Guide students to practice skill with corrective feedback
Provide time for independent and peer collaborative practice
Repeat instructional steps until student is able to apply skill independently in their reading and writing

13. Strategy 4- Decoding Provide extra time for phonemic awareness and phonics instruction and opportunities for students to practice new skills when reading
Struggling decoders need extra time for reading in class in order to comprehend the text
May consider recording lessons for these students to review at their own pace

14. Morphology
Study of word structure, describes how words are formed from morphemes
Morphemes are smallest unit of meaning in a word
Cats- 2 morphemes; cat + s which indicates plurality
Changing the morpheme can change meaning of word; bakes to baked
Morphology is still developing in late school-age readers

15. Good Readers- Morphology Adolescents
Use their knowledge of morphological structure to recognize complex words
Are better able to understand the meaning of words to deal with increased reading and writing demands across the curriculum and content areas

16. Challenges of Morphology: Adolescent Readers
Have more difficulty recognizing and learning words
May experience delayed vocabulary and difficulty in defining specific vocabulary words

17. Instruction for Morphology: Adolescent Readers
Teach different morpheme patterns like Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek
Use speed drills to build automatic recognition of syllables and morphemes
Teach six syllable types: closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel pair, vowel-r, and consonant-l-e
Teach meaning of morphemes in sentences and derivations jump (verb) changes to jumpy (adjective)

18. Fluency
Ability to read text accurately and smoothly with little conscious attention to mechanics of reading
Includes reading with appropriate speed, accuracy, proper intonation, and proper expression

19. Good Readers: Fluency
Recognize words automatically and are better able to understand text
Reading sounds natural and expressive
Focus on meaning of text and not on mechanics of decoding
Complete work faster and with higher quality

20. Challenges of Fluency: Adolescent Readers
Read slowly, often stopping to sound out words
Spend excessive time decoding and lose meaning of text
Fluency varies with difficulty of text, amount of practice, and genre of text

21. Instruction for Fluency: Adolescent Readers
Provide models of fluent reading
Read from class texts regularly, giving students a model of fluent reading
Engage students in repeated oral reading of texts
Read aloud passages several times regularly with feedback
Allow students to practice reading aloud by themselves first to avoid embarassment

22. Instruction for Fluency, cont’d.
Engage students in guided oral reading
High school teachers would target a small group of struggling readers and rotate independent instructional time with them, ask them to read aloud, guide them to self-correct, ask questions about content
Choral reading used with specific key passages like poems or monologues

23. Instruction for Fluency
Engage student in partner reading
Pair more and less fluent readers
Consider compatibility and fluency
Introduce reading material by reading aloud a few paragraphs
Inform students that they will read aloud different passages after first reading silently
Take turns reading with partner

24. Vocabulary Words used in print and speech to communicate
Two types include oral and print
Oral- words recognized and used in speaking
Aural- words understood when listening to others
Print- words used in reading and writing, most difficult to obtain

25. Vocabulary Two important skills of development
Word identification- decoding of a word
Word analysis- process of understanding the letters, sounds, roots, prefixes and suffixes that make up words, and enable student to understand the words, also refers to syntactic awareness (grammatical use of the word), demonstrated by using the word appropriately in sentences and context

26. Good Readers- Vocabulary
Know a wide range of oral and print vocabulary
Read approximately one million words per year, results from extensive and repeated exposure to words through reading and speaking

27. Challenges of Vocabulary: Adolescents
Students not successful in using strategies to decode words especially in academic vocabulary; meaning of text is lost
Understanding meaning of word from one content to another; meter means a measurement in math but a poetic rhythm in English class

28. Instruction: Vocabulary
Pre-teach difficult vocabulary
selected on the importance of the word, prior knowledge of similar concepts, multiple meanings of the words, grouping words to enhance understanding of a concept

29. Instruction: Vocabulary cont’d.
Use Direct, explicit, and systematic instruction to teach difficult vocabulary
Lessons should be fast paced, brief, multi-sensory, and interactive
Explain meanings, provide guided practice with words, provide time for independent practice with vocabulary (collaborative learning), repeat steps until students can use words successfully in reading and writing

30. Instruction for Vocabulary cont’d.
Use students’ prior knowledge and provide opportunities for multiple exposures to new words
Elicit prior knowledge of content vocabulary from students to help with selecting vocabulary
Provide multiple repetitions of the words in different contexts
Point out non-specialized academic words that talk about content like cause, consequence, relationship, etc.

31. Instruction for Vocabulary cont’d.
Use computer technology to help teach new vocabulary
Computer games, online dictionaries, content-area-related websites, computer animation

32. Text Comprehension Process of extracting or constructing meaning
Making sense of the information and ideas conveyed in a text
Even good readers struggle sometimes because of content, style, or syntactic structure of the text

33. Good Readers and Text Comprehension
Set a purpose for reading- informational, instructional, entertainment
Use strategies like drawing conclusions, predicting, summarizing, contrasting ideas, connecting to other texts
Analyze how writers, illustrators, and others represent people and ideas
Apply critical thinking

34. Challenges of Comprehension: Adolescent Readers
Lack adequate fluency to achieve comprehension
Lack strategies to understand text
Limited background knowledge
Encounter expository texts most often in school setting and lack strategies, background, etc. for dealing with difficulty

35. Instruction for Comprehension
Integrate strategies into instruction
Generate questions before, during, after reading
Model how to formulate answers, where answers come from, drawing on prior knowledge or information in text, charts, graphs, etc.
Monitor Comprehension along the way by stopping to interpret
Use text structure to analyze transition words, patterns, underlining key words, looking for clues

36. Strategies for Comprehension cont’d.
Teach students to use multiple strategies
Questioning, chunking information, summarizing, predicting

37. Writing
Ability to compose text effectively for various purposes and audiences, tool for communication and learning
Provides ability to express oneself and persuading others
Researchers believe improving writing skills improves capacity to learn

38. Good Writers
Employ different types of strategies to help navigate through writing process
Learn to be self-directed and goal- oriented
Learn how to plan, organize, and revise
Are aware of audience, genres, and purpose of writing

39. Challenges of Writing: Adolescents
Lack effective communication and learning tool when students can’t write well
Limits opportunities for future education and employment
Suffer academically

40. Instruction for Writing
Explain the writing skill or strategy and then model it
Guide student in using the skills and strategies and provide corrective feedback
Provide time and opportunities for independent practice with writing skills and strategies
Repeat steps until students are able to use them independently

41. Writing Teach students importance of prewriting
Provide a supportive instructional environment for students
Use rubrics to assess writing
Assess the needs of diverse learners

42. Motivation Motivated readers are:
Self-determined, self-regulated, engaged

43. Problems with Motivation: Adolescents
Changes in beliefs, values, and goals
May read magazines of personal interest outside of school, surf the Internet, send and receive
Tracking and grouping students with other unmotivated students
Lack of confidence in their reading skills

44. Instruction for Motivation: Adolescents
Set clear goals and expectations for performance, set purpose for reading, let students know what to expect
Guide students to focus on their own improvement by setting goals and tracking progress through reading logs and charts
Provide a variety and choice in reading materials
Provide opportunity for students to interact through reading

45. Needs of Diverse Learners
Use multiple methods of instruction for presenting text, ideas, and strategies in different ways
Break down content instruction into smaller chunks for struggling readers
Provide extended talk time, small group discussion
Model and provide instruction in academic English
Talk with students individually, ask them questions about how they are learning

46. Conclusion Struggling readers are at every socioeconomic level.
Explicit, systematic, and direct instruction is the most effective strategy for improving reading skills among adolescents.