Topic:  Middle and Secondary Students and Literacy

It is important for educators to recognize that as students get older the types of skill and strategy instruction we provide in our classrooms must change to meet the developmental levels of our students.  When these students do not respond to typical classroom instruction, we must know what types of intervention methods are available and appropriate for our students.  The following is a list of on-line resources to facilitate middle and secondary teachers in improving the literacy development of their students.  These resources expand on the foundational information found in chapter one of:  Brozo, W.G., & Simpson, M.L. (1999). Readers, teachers, learners: Expanding literacy across the content areas (3^rd Edition). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Tips from Instructional Specialists (Reading)

Bulleted lists provide frameworks for understand seven components of good instructional practice as it relates to reading and literacy instruction.  The topics covered include:  

• Profile of a Strategic Reader
• Reading/Listening for Literary Experiences
• What a Student and Teachers Must Know to Do Well in Reading on MSPAP
• A Reader's Checklist For Success in Reading for Literary Experience
• Checklist for Assuring Effective Instruction
• A Summary of Understanding Literature by Judith A. Langer
• A Reader’s Checklist in Reading to Perform a Task

These tips reflect "best practice" and are general enough to apply to all ages of students.  This site particularly addresses a question posed on page 4 in our textbook (Brozo, W.G., & Simpson, M.L. (1999). Readers, teachers, learners: Expanding literacy across the content areas (3^rd Edition). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall):  What is literacy and its role in middle and secondary school?  This site also underscores the principles addressed in chapter one of this book, indicating that language-based learning is a social process; it is best when delivered whole, functional, and meaningful; students need many opportunities to use reading and writing as vehicles for learning; students must be motivated to want to read and write; and the pursuit for literacy is a lifelong process.

By-Pass and Intervention Strategies for Students who Struggle

   This site provides a list of strategies for helping struggling readers.  Areas addressed include attention, ordering, memory, social considerations, higher order thinking, neuromotor difficulties, and language.  This site suggests that if teachers can identify difficulties their students are having they can employ strategies to help the students overcome or compensate for the difficulties and become more successful in the classroom.  These strategies are particularly applicable for middle and high school students who have the cognitive development to be able to monitor their own learning. 

Soar to Success

    This site provides three extensive articles related to reading and literacy intervention with older (above grade three) students.  The articles include, "Stopping Reading Failure", "Using Soar To Success with Special Education Students," and "Summary of Research Report."  This site would be useful to teachers who are looking for research-based information to try and understand the role of intervention, the needs of struggling readers, instructional strategies that facilitate students in developing comprehension, and the application of SUCCESS (an intervention program for older learners).  Emphasis is given to special needs learners in the regular classroom and an extensive bibliography provides opportunities for continued research on these topics. 

A District-Wide Commitment to Struggling Readers

This site explains the Madison Metropolitan School District's plan to address the reading needs of their students.  The school district planned its intervention strategies based on research that found the following situations in regard to high school students:

1. Struggling readers may receive no additional instruction in reading that continues to build their reading abilities.
2. Struggling readers may receive reading instruction in remedial programs that are isolated from the learning demands expected of them the rest of the day in their content classes.
3. Struggling readers are frequently expected to perform independently in their content classrooms without the benefit of teaching strategies that foster their learning and without the availability of additional support, such as tutoring.
4. Struggling readers may have to cope with learning in high school with no access to professionals trained in the teaching of reading.

Information is provided that outlines ten commitments the school system is making to improve the literacy levels of high school students.  Particularly interesting is the emphasis on reading instruction in the content areas.  Every teacher is a teacher of reading.  Other sources of information on this page include tables of pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading that demonstrate the different types of behaviors exhibited between "struggling" and "strong" readers.  The section at the bottom of the site provides a list of ways that the classroom teacher can contribute to a school-wide emphasis on literacy development.  

Research Conclusions Crucial to the Teaching of Reading

Because I am focusing on chapter one ((Brozo, W.G., & Simpson, M.L. (1999). Readers, teachers, learners: Expanding literacy across the content areas (3^rd Edition). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall) which provides an overview of the challenges of teaching reading with older students, the status of literacy in our schools, and how language-based classrooms facilitate literacy development, this site helps to reinforce the research noted in chapter one.  Seventeen research-based conclusions are listed to provide teachers with the information needed to implement "best practices" in their classrooms.  Perhaps the most significant aspect of this site is the extensive bibliography listed at the end of the page.  

Muskingum College:  Center for Advancement of Learning - Learning Strategies Database:  Reading Comprehension

This site is one of the most extensive I have seen in an on-line database on reading comprehension strategies.  These strategies are applicable for a wide range of ages. The website begins with providing background information on reading comprehension, describing the behaviors of good and poor readers, reasons for poor comprehension, and how teachers can troubleshoot to ensure proper comprehension.  The remainder of the site provides many strategies for improving comprehension.  These strategies are divided into categories:  

• General Fix-Up Strategies; 
• Increasing Reading Rate; 
• Challenging Reading Material; 
• Books on Tape; 
• Reading Strategies for ESL/EFL Students; 
• Reading Preparation for Standardized Tests; 
• Textbook Notetaking; 
• Group Activity for Content Reading; 
• Study Groups for Reading; 
• Graphic Organizers for Merging Reading and Cooperative Strategies; 
• Discussion Continuum; 
• Building Active Readers through Debate; 
• Non-text Reading Comprehension; 
• Reading Foreign Language Texts; 
• Reading Science Material; 
• Staying Alert While Reading; 
• Summary Writing; 
• Creating Interest; 
• Improving Comprehension; 
• Improving Motivation;
• General Approach to Unfamiliar Vocabulary Words;
• Predictions Based on Context;
• Word Elements:  Affixes and Roots;
• Antonyms, Synonyms and Related Approaches;
• LINCS Strategy;
• Dissect Strategy;
• CSSD Strategy;
• Vocab Game;
• Graphic Organizers and Groups;
• Patterned Language Approach;
• Teaching Vocabulary:  Do's and Don'ts;
• Strategies Related to Organization;
• Textbook Organization;
• Text Skimming;
• Creative Mapping for Content Reading;
• Mediated Instruction of Text (MIT) for Content Reading;
• SQ3R Strategy;
• PQ4R Strategy;
• RAP Strategy;
• SNIPS Strategy;
• PARTS:  A Text Perusal Strategy;
• REAP Strategy;
• Multipass Strategy;
• PRSR Strategy;
• PROR Strategy;
• Textbook Reading Guides;
• Exercises in Meaningful Organization;
• KWL Strategy;
• Directed Reading Activity (DRA);
• Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA);
• Story Star/Story Maps Strategy;
• Gleaning

Educators should be able to identify comprehension problems in their classrooms and use this site to locate strategies to use to improve students' abilities to comprehend written materials.  

Bibliography of Resources for Middle and Secondary Teachers that Facilitate Student Literacy

2nd edition (March 1998)
Boynton/Cook Pub; ISBN: 0867093749

Teaching Reading in Middle School (Grades 5 & Up)
by Laura Robb

 Paperback - 352 pages (August 1, 2000)
Scholastic Prof Book Div; ISBN: 0590685600