Struggling Older Readers Is There A Problem

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Struggling Older Readers Is There A Problem?
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• More than eight million students in grades 4-12
  are struggling readers
• (US Department of Education, 2003)
• Every school day more than three thousand
  students drop out of high school
• (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003)

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• High school students in the lowest 25 percent of
  their class are twenty times more likely to drop
  out than the highest performing students
• (Carnevale, 2001)
• Approximately 53 percent of high school graduates
  enroll in remedial courses in postsecondary
  education
• (NCES, 2001)

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Achievement on NAEP ReadingThe Nations report
card

• Percentile Minutes/day Words/year
• 90th 40.4 minutes 2,357,000 words
• 50th 12.9 minutes 601,000 words
• 10th 1.6 minutes 51,000 words

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More NAEP statistics

• Scores Below Basic and Basic
• Grade 12 1998 62
• 2002 66
• Grade 8 1998 71
• 2002 69

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Below Basic requires literal understanding Basic
requires some inferencing
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Proficient requires making connections across
text and some analysis Advanced requires making
generalizations and evaluations about texts
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Reading Next A Vision for Action Research in
Middle and High School Literacy

• Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
• Effective instructional principles embedded in
  context
• Motivation and Self-directed learning

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Reading Next

• Text-based collaborative learning
• Strategic tutoring
• Diverse texts
• Intensive writing

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Reading Next

• A technology component
• Ongoing formative assessment of students
• Extended time for literacy
• Professional development that is both long term
  and ongoing

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Reading Next

• Ongoing summative assessment of students and
  programs
• Teacher teams which are interdisciplinary
• Leadership
• A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program

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How the reader and the text transact

• Skilled readers vary their approach according to
  the task
• Struggling readers dont know how to switch their
  approach

(Rosenblatt)
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Types of Aliterates

• 1. Dormant Readers
• As a result of schedules and restraints, they
  just dont have time to read
• These students benefit from time to read in
  class
• 2. Uncommitted Readers
• They will read a single book, but require
  encouragement to seek out more works or authors
• With these students we must stress the enjoyment
  of reading
• Book talks help to encourage their interests

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• 3. Unmotivated Readers
• These are the dependent readers who struggle to
  read
• If all we do is focus on skills, they will never
  have the opportunity to develop a positive
  attitude.
• Use Read alouds and tease them to finish the
  book

(Beers,1990)
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What Current Research Is Showing Teachers

• Literacy programs that successfully teach
  at-risk students emphasize
• connections between students' lives and texts

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students prior knowledge about the texts and
student conversations to make those connections.
(Langer, 2002)
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Civil Discourse

• Conversations that require us to deal with
  difficult issues, controversies, events,
  predicting outcomes, examining reasoning,
  providing evidence

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Active Listening

• Listening more carefully
• Calling for, providing and questioning evidence
• Examining and accepting other points of view
• Dealing tactfully with others
• Probst, 2007

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• In cases where older students need help to
  construct meaning with text, instruction should
  be targeted and embedded in authentic reading
  experiences.
• 
  
• (National Reading Panel, 2000)

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• Assessment should focus on underlying knowledge
  across curriculum and on strategies for thinking
  during literacy acts.
• (Darling-Hammond and Falk 1997)

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• Writing out definitions in a linear fashion
  doesnt help to expand students vocabulary
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  (Nagy)

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What Adolescent Readers Need
NCTE Recommendations

• Experience in critical examination of texts that
  helps them to
• Recognize how texts are organized in various
  disciplines and genre

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Features of Nonfiction Texts

• Graphics (charts, graphs, maps)
• Vocabulary (bold, italics, sidebars)
• Table of Contents, Glossary, Index
• Headings and Subheadings
• Diagrams

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(No Transcript)
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Writing Next

• Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of
  Adolescents in Middle and High Schools
• Graham and Vanderbilt

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Writing Strategies

• Teaching students strategies for planning,
  revising, and editing
• ES .82

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Summarization

• Explicitly and systematically teaching students
  how to summarize texts
• ES .82

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Collaborative Writing

• Adolescents have opportunities to work together
  to plan, draft, revise, and edit
• ES.75

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Specific Product Goals

• Assign students specific, reachable goals for
  completing writing
• ES .70

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Persuasive writing(an example)

• Strong topic sentences
• Details and elaboration
• Counterarguments

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Word Processing

• Using computers and word processors as
  instructional supports
• ES .55

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Sentence Combining

• Teaching students to construct more complex,
  sophisticated sentences by combining simpler
  sentences
• ES .50

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Process Writing Approach

• Extended writing opportunities
• Writing for authentic audiences
• Personalized instruction
• Ownership
• Student interactions
• Recursive cycles of writing
• ES .32

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Prewriting

• Activities designed to help students generate or
  organize ideas for their writing
• ES .32

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Inquiry Activities

• Engage students in analyzing immediate, concrete
  data to help develop ideas and content for
  writing
• ES .32

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Study of Models

• Provide students with opportunities to read,
  analyze, and emulate good writing
• ES .25

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Writing for Learning Content

• Uses writing as a tool for learning content area
  material
• ES .23

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Content Area Writing

• Write to remember, reflect, organize and come to
  an understanding
• Most effective with Mathematics and Science

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An aside

• Explicit teaching of grammar
• ES -.32

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• Linda Stimson
• English language arts consultant
• NH DOE
• lstimson_at_ed.state.nh.us
• 603.271.2035