Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen Center on Instruction April 30, 2007

1. Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen Center on Instruction April 30, 2007

2. “Current difficulties in reading largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from declining absolute levels of literacy.”

3. “When all of this data is brought together, it is apparent that society in general and the workplace in particular demand higher levels of reading proficiency than schools. Moreover, many students are barely meeting those minimal education requirements.” —Pennsylvania Department of Education (2004, p. 3)

4. Williamson (2004) examined the difficulty of a sample of 11th and 12th grade textbooks in history, social science, and science. He also examined the difficulty of texts used in 12 common post secondary settings. All texts were examined using the lexile framework, which provides a quantitative estimate of the difficulty of the text in terms of reading comprehension.

5. Graduate Record Examination University Community College Workplace Citizenship Military SAT, ACT, AP Williamson, 2004 High School Texts

6. Improvements in reading over the last 30 years Latest results from the long-term National Assessment of Educational Progress 17 13 9

7. Documents useful at state, district, and school level Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy “….enough is already known about adolescent literacy…. order to act immediately on a broad scale.”

8. Documents useful at state, district, and school level Reading at Risk: The State Response to the Crisis in Adolescent Literacy National Association of State Boards of Education (2006)

9. Documents useful at state, district, and school level Reading to Achieve: A Governor’s Guide to Adolescent Literacy. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (2005)

10. Documents useful at state, district, and school level Creating a Culture of Literacy: A Guide for Middle and High School Principals National Association of Secondary School Principals (2005)

11. Documents useful at state, district, and school level Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents Center on Instruction (2007)

12. Three Major Sections PART ONE: Improving academic literacy instruction for students in grades 4-12. PART TWO: Advice from experts about improving academic literacy instruction for adolescents. PART THREE: Examples of state activities in support of improved adolescent literacy

13. Adolescent Literacy: Our Focus The term Adolescent Literacy can be used to encompass both more than reading, and reading in many and varied forms. “The privileging of one form of literacy (academic literacy) over multiple other forms (e.g. computer, visual, graphic, and scientific literacies) has been criticized for ignoring the fact that different texts and social contexts (reading for whom, with what purpose) require different reading skills” (Alverman, 2001).

14. Adolescent Literacy: The Domain In the present context, our decision was to focus on academic literacy: The kinds of reading abilities that support success in the classroom The kinds of reading abilities that are assessed on state level accountability measures of reading comprehension and on the NAEP

15. Efforts to improve adolescent literacy should focus on three goals: 1. Improve overall levels of reading proficiency for all students. 2. Ensure that students at “grade level” in third grade are also at “grade level” in 10th grade. 3. Accelerate the development of students reading below grade level toward grade-level standards.

16. Part of the solution to the challenge of increasing reading proficiency in adolescents involves confronting the limitations of the popular statement: In grades K-3, students “learn to read,” while in grades 4-12, they “read to learn.”

17. What areas of knowledge and skill may require explicit instruction and supported practice in order to sustain and accelerate literacy development between grades 4 and 12?

18. General findings of research on the growth of reading skills in adolescents What areas of knowledge and skill must grow in order to sustain and accelerate literacy development between grades 4 and 12?

19. 1. Sight-word reading vocabulary must be extended to unfamiliar words in increasingly challenging text.

20. Text difficulty increases Text difficulty increases 18 WPM 23 WPM 22 WPM 160 150 140 130 120 Tindal, Hasbrouck, & Jones, 2005 110 100 F W S F W SF W S 6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade

21. Sight-reading vocabulary must be extended to unfamiliar words in increasingly challenging text. • Vocabulary, or knowledge of word meanings, must expand dramatically. • Conceptual knowledge and understanding must grow. • Thinking and reasoning skills must increase. • Self-regulated use of reading comprehension strategies must develop. • Motivation and interest for broad and deep reading must be maintained or acquired.

22. Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents, page 11: “This list is offered as a heuristic for thinking about the kind of instruction that will be required to improve levels of adolescent literacy significantly. “It suggests that in order to meet the three goals for adolescent literacy outlined above, schools and classrooms will need to improve their instructional practices very broadly in order to have a significant impact on levels of their students’ academic literacy.”

23. Each recommendation contains: A brief introduction followed by descriptions in some detail of 3 to 5 of the best studies available in each area. General recommendations for implementation. Further readings.

24. 5 areas of improvement 1. More explicit instruction and guided practice in the use of reading comprehension strategies.

25. A classroom example of strategic instruction Klingner, Vaughn, Schumm (1998). Study conducted in five 4th-grade classrooms that were ethnically and socio-culturally diverse (68% Hispanic, 24% White, 7% Black, and 1% Asian or American Indian). The mean percentile rank on a test of reading accuracy was 39th. Classrooms were randomly assigned to either the treatment or control condition.

26. A classroom example of strategic instruction Students in both the instructional and control conditions learned the same content, a social studies topic. Students received eleven lessons in classes that lasted 45 minutes each. The same homework activity was assigned to both groups of students.

27. A classroom example of strategic instruction Students in the instructional condition were taught four reading strategies, and then given extended opportunities to practice using these strategies: 1. Preview 2. Click and Clunk 3. Get the gist 4. Wrap-up

28. A classroom example of strategic instruction From the fourth lesson on, students worked in small groups of 5-6 to learn the content of the textbook while they practiced using the strategies. There was a substantial amount of high-quality discussion focused on content and structured around the use of the strategies. While students worked cooperatively on their assignments, the teacher circulated and provided additional instruction and support as necessary.

29. A classroom example of strategic instruction Impact of the intervention was assessed with a test of reading comprehension and with a 50-item test on the content of the social studies unit. Students in the intervention group improved more on general reading comprehension, and learned the content of the social studies unit as well as the students in the control group.

30. “Comprehension strategies should be taught explicitly through reading and writing activities across the curriculum. All teachers within a grade level should teach a common set of three to four reading comprehension strategies in each content area.” (John Guthrie) Comments from experts: What are the most important improvements you would like to see in literacy instruction from content area teachers?

31. Comments from experts: “Content-area teachers need to be engaged in a unified approach to literacy instruction in which they acquire proficiency in two to four high-impact strategies/practices that they then use consistently within their areas of instruction.” (Sharon Vaughn)

32. 5 areas of improvement 1. More explicit instruction and guided practice in the use of reading comprehension strategies. 2. Increasing the amount of open, sustained discussion of content and ideas from text.

33. Comments from experts: “Active exploration of ideas and interpretations requires teachers to devote significant amounts of class time to substantive discussion and student exploration of meaning.” (Arthur Applebee)

34. What kind of discussion works best? Sandora, Beck, & McKeown (1999). Which of two discussion techniques—Great Booksor Questioning theAuthor—produced the greater impact on middle school students’ understanding of complex literature? Students were in 6th and 7th grade, attending an inner city school. 75% read below the 50th percentile. One class of about 25 students participated in each discussion technique—with the same teacher.

35. What kind of discussion works best? In the Great Books approach, discussion is initiated after students have read the entire text and is guided by three types of questions: factual, interpretive, and evaluative. The Questioning the Author approach involves discussing the text while students are reading it. After reading short selections, the teacher presents queries that stimulate discussion and interpretation.

36. What kind of discussion works best? Four stories from the Great Books series were discussed during four 80-minute sessions. Students from one class discussed these stories using techniques from Questioning the Author, while the students in the other class discussed them following the Great Books format. After the reading and discussion period, the students’ understanding of the stories were assessed in two different ways.

37. What kind of discussion works best? Students who used the Questioning the Author method had stronger outcomes on both story recall and open-ended question tests.

38. 5 areas of improvement • More explicit instruction and guided practice in the use of reading comprehension strategies • Increasing the amount of open, sustained discussion of content and ideas from text. • 3. Maintaining high standards for the level of conversation, questions, vocabulary, that are used in discussions and in assignments • 4. Adopting instructional methods that increase student engagement with text and motivation for reading • 5. More powerful teaching of content and use of methods that allow all to learn critical content.

39. Some examples of strategies to increase engagement and motivation 1. Engaging content goals for instruction 2. Choice and autonomy 3. Interesting texts 4. Opportunities to collaborate with other students in discussion and assignment groups

40. From John Guthrie: “Motivated students usually want to understand text content fully and therefore, process information deeply. As they read frequently with these cognitive purposes, motivated students gain in reading comprehension proficiency”

41. 5 areas of improvement • More explicit instruction and guided practice in the use of reading comprehension strategies • Increasing the amount of open, sustained discussion of content and ideas from text. • 3. Maintaining high standards for the level of conversation, questions, vocabulary, that are used in discussions and in assignments • 4. Adopting instructional methods that increase student engagement with text and motivation for reading • 5. More powerful teaching of content and use of methods that allow all to learn critical content.

42. Comments from experts: “In order to help all students in academically diverse classes meet assessment standards, general education teachers must focus on content that is most important.” (Don Deshler)

43. Comments from experts: “Content-area teachers should identify the key concepts and principles for each unit they are teaching that they would like every student to know. The goal is to identify those key concepts and principles that represent the most essential information in the unit of study.” (Sharon Vaughn)

44. A concluding comment on page 65 “If content-area teachers adopt instructional practices that lead students to become more strategic readers, more able to think deeply and reason from text, more focused on high standards of comprehension and learning, more engaged in meeting important learning goals through their reading and study, and more able to retain essential content from their classes, many of the most important goals of educational reform and improvement will have been met.”

45. Struggling readers—the background Adolescent struggling readers are a very heterogeneous group with widely varying challenges. The most common problems involve comprehension of text, but substantial numbers of students also continue to struggle with word-level reading skills.

46. Struggling readers—the background Adolescent struggling readers have the dual challenge of improving reading proficiency while meeting demands of content classes. The goal of intervention for adolescents is to accelerate their reading growth—it must be sufficiently powerful to substantially increase their rate of growth in reading ability.

47. Factors influencing academic literacy 1. Reading accuracy and fluency 2. Vocabulary, or knowledge of word meanings 3. Conceptual knowledge and understanding 4. Thinking and reasoning skills 5. Effective use of reading comprehension strategies 6. Motivation to understand and learn

48. Interventions for struggling readers – 2 important points First, schools need to be able to provide high-quality instruction in both word-level and comprehension skills in order to meet the diverse needs of students who continue to struggle with reading in late-elementary, middle, and high school. Second, with the exception of instruction to increase reading accuracy and fluency, the content of effective literacy instruction for students reading below grade is very similar to that recommended for students reading at grade level and above.

49. Recommendation for coordination: Some of the reading strategies that are explicitly taught to struggling readers in reading support classes should also be supported and reinforced in content area classes.

50. Comments from experts: “For adolescents at the initial stages of reading, intensive interventions directed toward meeting their needs in alphabetics must be developed by teachers trained specifically in those methods.” (Mary Beth Curtis) “As (struggling) students master the basic skills of reading, the instructional focus needs to shift to comprehension strategies with continued emphasis on vocabulary building.” (Don Deshler)