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This chapter illustrates how tenets of dialogical self theory expand current understandings of struggling reader identity. Research in the field of adolescent literacy demonstrates the significant influence of reading difficulties on readers’ identities, but little research exists that explores the role of the dialogical self within the context of struggling reader identity. I-positions, their temporal nature, and the influence of internal and external positions, provide a valuable framework for understanding the complexities of reader identity.

BACKGROUND: This study was designed to develop and validate a brief adolescent health literacy assessment tool (Rapid Estimate of Adolescent Literacy in Medicine Short Form [REALM-TeenS]). METHODS: We combined datasets from 2 existing research studies that used the REALM-Teen (n = 665) and conducted an item response theory analysis. The correlation between scores on the original 66-item REALM-Teen and the proposed REALM-TeenS was calculated, along with the decision consistency across forms with respect to grade level assignment of each adolescent and coefficient α. The proposed REALM-TeenS was validated with original REALM-Teen data from a third independent study (n = 174). RESULTS: Items with the largest discriminations across the scale, from low to high health literacy, were selected for inclusion in REALM-TeenS. From those, a set of 10 items was selected that maintained a reasonable level of SE across ability estimates and correlated highly (r = 0.92) with the original REALM-Teen scores. The coefficient α for the 10-item REALM-TeenS was .82. There was no evidence of model misfit (root mean square error of approximation < 0.001). In the validation sample, REALM-TeenS scores correlated highly with scores on the original REALM-Teen (r = 0.92), and the decision consistency across both forms was 80%. In pilot testing, administration took ∼20 seconds. CONCLUSIONS: The REALM-TeenS offers researchers and clinicians a brief validated screening tool that can be used to assess adolescent health literacy in a variety of settings. Scoring guidelines ensure that reading level assessment is appropriate by age and grade.

This paper describes an analysis of 21 adolescent literacy leaders' tweets over a total of four days. Coding of the tweets revealed that professional educators were tweeting about personal matters nearly as much as they are tweeting about educational matters. These tweeters also suggested resources, sent reports from events such as conferences, and made queries about classroom instruction. Documentation of the project includes a breakdown of tweeted topics by percentage. Implications for educators who want to develop Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are discussed.

As the face of education and the demands on teachers continues to change in the 21st century, so does the role of the literacy coach in schools across the country. This article explores the changing roles and responsibilities of literacy coaches by sharing the results of a study of 270 literacy coaches around the country. In this article, we share coaches’ thoughts and perspectives about literacy leadership, the changing roles and responsibilities of the literacy coach/reading specialist, and what it takes to be successful in their roles as literacy leaders in schools and districts.

The link between recreational book reading and improved literacy performance is consistently supported by educational research. Increasing engagement in recreational book reading remains imperative for English teachers, though how to best facilitate this in a secondary context is an object of contention, with limited research in this field. The West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading explored attitudes and engagement in recreational book reading. Student responses provide valuable insight directly from the target group that can help to shape best practice for adolescent literacy educators. Findings are presented around six key themes, and include strategies for choice, access to attractive and diverse books, time availability, time allocation, concentration and encouragement.

Communication technologies are playing an increasingly prominent role in facilitating immigrants' social networks across countries and the transnational positioning of immigrant youth in their online language and literacy practices. Drawing from a comparative case study of the digital literacy practices of immigrant youth of Chinese descent, this paper examines the cross-border social relationships that are fostered between the youth and their peers in their natal country through the use of instant messaging and other online media. Using Pierre Bourdieu's capital and field theory, and the concept of social capital, this paper considers how literacy development in transnational contexts constitutes the production of social and cultural capital. It argues that the youths' online literacy practices need to be understood within the particular social fields in which they are situated and how they allow the youth to navigate and take up position within social fields that cross national boundaries.

Abstract: This study examines multilingual high school writers’ individual talk with their teachers in two advanced English language development classes to observe how such talk shapes linguistically diverse adolescents’ writing. Addressing adolescent writers’ language socialization through microethnographic discourse analysis, the author argues that teachers’ oral responses during writing conferences can either scaffold or deter students’ socialization into valued ways of using academic language for school writing. She suggests what forms of oral response provide scaffolding and what forms might limit multilingual adolescent learners’ academic literacy. Constructive interactions engaged students in dialogue about their writing, and students included content or phrasing from the interaction in their texts. Unhelpful interactions failed to foster students’ language development in observable ways. Although teachers attempted to scaffold ideas and language, they often did not guide students’ discovery of appropriate forms or points. These interactions represent restrictive academic language socialization: while some students did create academic texts, they learned little about academic language use.

Using a New Literacy Studies perspective that recognizes multiple literacies that are meaningful within their sociocultural traditions, this collective case study investigated the range, form, and purpose of the out-of-school literacies of four Latina/o adolescent English learners. The qualitative methodology employed constructivist interviews, digital artifacts, and observations. Findings demonstrated that their most prevalent out-of-school literacies take place on the social networking site of Facebook, in their workplaces, and through Spanish entertainment. The literacies in these spaces have unique and purposeful roles for the individuals that allow them to connect to their home countries and maintain their Latina/o identities, acquire English, support themselves, and establish a place to succeed. Findings demonstrate that these students are multilingual, multicultural transnationals who communicate with multiple modalities across various borders.

Levels of aliteracy have been found to rise in adolescence, and this article explores the potential influence of parents on this trend. The views of adolescent students who took part in semi-structured interviews for the West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading (WASABR) provide insight into how parental support may change in the adolescent years. Student perspectives support earlier findings that there is an expiration of parental encouragement in many cases, though this sometimes occurs as children are avid readers and thus the support is no longer deemed necessary. The experiences of students with parents who provided continued encouragement into adolescence are examined, with consistent characteristics emerging from the qualitative data. The article identifies optimal mechanisms through which parents can play an important role in supporting their children's recreational book reading into adolescence.

This article examines two comic book adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet produced for teenage readers and used in school classrooms. It seeks to understand the ways in which particular kinds of literacy are being implied and constructed through the textual practice of multimodal adaptation. It presents a close reading of sections of the texts and places them within the framework of multimodal theory and adaptation studies. The paper is part of a larger study of comic book adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays based on a series of semi-structured interviews with the producers (publishers, artists, textual editors) involved in the adaptation process. The data are analyzed in order to raise questions concerning the assumptions about literacy inherent in educational texts, and to outline the importance of further qualitative research in the area.

Tour Across America is an interdisciplinary, project-based, multimodal (IPM) activity where students get the opportunity to apply what they learn to a real-life situation while illustrating the interdisciplinary nature of literacy. It provides students with a high-interest, creative platform to review, reinforce, and integrate learned literacy skills and strategies across the content areas. Tour Across America allows students the opportunity to become concert tour managers for a fictional band. This IPM framework is an appropriate supplemental activity for upper elementary through high school language arts classes, regardless of the students’ ability levels or socioeconomic status. This article contributes to the research on adolescent literacy in two ways: by demonstrating the importance of using IPM strategies to bridge the gap between in-school literacies and out-of-school literacies, and by providing an activity that is effective and efficient at getting students to become literate across the content areas.

This single-case study demonstrates one bilingual Latino youth's out-of-school literacy practices and how he has learned to disconnect them from his academic work. Qualitative data taken from interviews, the participant's social networking sites, poetry journal, and observations of him in community organizations demonstrate the frequency and purposes of his out-of-school literacy practices of writing poetry, language brokering, reading, technology use, and activism. The findings suggest that the participant has many sophisticated and bilingual literacy practices that were never viewed as funds of knowledge in his subtractive schooling environment, leading to his educational failure.

The purpose of this embedded mixed methods study was to examine how sixth graders with high and low reading attitudes perceive teacher read aloud. We utilized quantitative data by surveying sixth graders (N = 87) about their reading attitudes and then collected qualitative data by interviewing five students, interviewing the teacher, conducting classroom observations, and reviewing read aloud materials. Students with lower reading attitudes enjoyed the relaxed classroom setting, while those with higher attitudes enjoyed the books being read. Other themes suggested that all students engaged inconsistently with the text, and that students are indeed aware of the potential instructional benefits of reading aloud. Implications are discussed including the importance of pairing teacher read aloud with other strategies to help students engage more explicitly with the text.

Teacher professional development has been identified as essential to educational reform. Moreover, research suggests the power of inquiry communities in spurring teacher professional learning and shifts in classroom practice. However, not enough is known about what conditions within a community of inquiry might be necessary to inspire, support, sustain, and coordinate educators’ investment in systems-level change. To fill this gap, this article reports findings from the last year of a longitudinal case study of a school district seeking to advance adolescent literacy in subject-area classrooms. We extended from prior findings to investigate whether and how educators’ self-perceptions of efficacy and agency could be related to their engagement in a district-level, inquiry-based initiative. Participants were 43 teachers and school- and district-based leaders. Multiple forms of evidence (i.e., interviews, artifacts, field-notes) were collected and coordinated within a case study design. Findings suggested that the vast majority of participants experienced increases in efficacy that could be associated with their engagement in collaborative inquiry, which in turn had potential to fuel on-going change efforts. At the same time, leaders’ careful attention to preserving teachers’ agency appeared to support their sustained investment in continuous cycles of goal-directed practice improvement. Implications are discussed for structuring professional development within systemic improvement initiatives.

As the reading difficulties experienced by students with emotional-behavioral disorders (EBD) receive more attention, the corresponding call for evidence-based practices has become more pronounced. We conducted a systematic review of comprehension and fluency interventions for middle and high school students with EBD served outside of the general education classroom in the years since the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004). This literature synthesis represents a response to previous reviews to provide an updated state of the field regarding reading intervention research for students with EBD. The nine studies meeting inclusion criteria, all of which employed a single-subject design, contained a variety of intervention procedures and practices. Results indicated an increased amount of research involving middle and high school students with EBD. Effect sizes are reported, in addition to implications and recommendations for school-based practitioners and directions for future research.

This article explores the impact of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) videogames in a high school curriculum when developed through a connected learning frame by examining the influence that COTS videogames have on transforming students’ literacy learning in-school. However, it must be noted that transforming literacy in school is about more than bridging in- and out-of-school literacies; it concerns developing a deeper understanding of the meaning of literacy in today’s multimediated world, and the ways that these experiences are connected not only to media, but to traditional texts, peers, and guiding teachers, so that we can better grasp how to harness new learning styles and new ways of making meaning in contemporary classroom spaces. To understand how to capture in and out-of-school practices, we conducted a qualitative case study of two high school students enrolled in a reading intervention class that incorporated a COTS videogames curriculum. Data were analyzed via a constant comparison analys...

More often than not, the major secondary and post-school concerns for youth and young adults with disabilities relate to literacy challenges. These challenges include reading, writing, strategic learning, and self-regulatory behaviors. Even challenging behaviors and school drop-out concerns frequently connect to literacy. We believe that there exists interdependence between confidence in ones' literacy skills (self-efficacy) and performance (literacy achievement and motivation to be in school). This article describes an adolescent literacy and academic behavior self-efficacy survey and the validation of this survey as a reliable literacy efficacy assessment. The article describes practitioner uses of the Adolescent Literacy and Academic Behavior Self- Efficacy Survey (ALAB) as an evaluation tool; ideas for building literacy self-efficacy are also offered and have been aligned with evidence-based practices. In addition, recommendations for future research connecting self-efficacy to desired transition outcomes are addressed.

Instructional coaching runs the risk of being abandoned by policy makers and secondary schools if efficacy expectations related to adolescent literacy are not met (Knight, 2010; Walpole & McKenna, 2008). Research into coaching has examined the roles of coaches (Borman & Fenger, 2006; Smith, 2007) as well as the stances employed during collaborations (Costa & Garmston, 2002; Deussen et al., 2007; Ippolito, 2010), but insufficient research has explored how secondary coaches attempt to impact adolescent literacy in unfamiliar disciplines and the ways instructional coaches use coaching practices to negotiate disciplinary tensions. This paper is part of a larger qualitative study aimed at investigating the “heavy coaching” (Killion, 2009; 2010) discourse and practices employed by coaches at three different secondary schools as they attempted to improve the disciplinary literacy of students. In this paper, I present the case study of Eric, a former high school English teacher, as he worked with a high school algebra teacher, Jackie, over the course of a semester. While Eric attempted to coach heavy, the disciplinary tensions prompted him to employ situated coaching practices. Findings from this study suggest a disciplinary outsider status may be ameliorated through a coach’s use of transparency and collaborative practitioner inquiry.

Purpose To describe the role of teaching “the paragraph” in furthering literacy goals. The study considers one concept, the Claim-Support-Conclusion Paragraph (CSC) as a curricular and pedagogic intervention supporting writing and academic success for the marginalized students in two classrooms. Design/methodology/approach While this study corresponds to a gap in the literature of writing instruction (and paragraphing), it takes as its model the development of comprehensive collaborations where researcher-scholars embed themselves in the real practices of school classrooms. A fully-fledged partnership between researcher, practitioners, is characteristic of “practice embedded educational research,” or PEER (Snow, 2015), with analysis of data following qualitative and case study methodology. Findings Practice-embedded research in this partnership consistently revealed several important themes, including the effective use of the CSC paragraph functions as a critical common denominator across rich curricular choices. Extensive use of writing practice drives increased literacy fluency for struggling students, and writing practice can be highly integrated with reading practice. Effective writing instruction likely includes analytic and interpretive purposes, as well as personal, aesthetic writing, and teaching good paragraphing is intertwined with all of these genres in a community that values writing routines. Practical implications Greater academic success for the marginalized students in their classroom necessitates the use of a variety of scaffolds, and writing instruction can include the CSC paragraph as a means to develop academic literacies, including argumentation. Collaborative and innovative work with curriculum within a PEER model may have affordances for developing practitioner and researcher knowledge about writing instruction.

To investigate a diverse sample of adolescent writers’ experiences with disciplinary writing, this study compared 66 adolescents’ perceptions of writing through an analysis of interviews as part of a national study. Grounded in a social constructivist framework that stresses the role of agency in the development of writing competence, the study aims to examine factors – including language background and prior writing experiences – that are associated with adolescents’ perceptions of their writing development. The study asked: How do native English speaking and English language learning adolescents’ perceptions of writing development compare? To what extent, if at all, is agency implicated in patterns of variation? Results of the comparative analysis suggest that varying affordances and constraints, and combinations of these, relate to adolescents’ expressed agency toward writing. Affordances include opportunities to select personally relevant subjects and to develop writing through feedback and revision processes; constraints include the use of highly structured writing scaffolds, formulas, and tightly constrained topics. Implications for differentiated scaffolding of writing instruction that might affectively and cognitively engage diverse adolescent learners are discussed.

The Pecha Kucha talk is an effective way to encourage the composition process; to promote the use of effective visuals to explain and engage; and to distribute the expertise in the classroom away from the teacher as the central expert and to the students. In this paper, we describe and give an example of what is called a Pecha Kucha (Japanese for ‘chit chat’). When examined within the frameworks of theorists in the areas of composition, pedagogy, and literacy, this emerging presentation genre is promising for both composer and audience. With this in mind, we first discuss ways that the creator of the Pecha Kucha may benefit from the specific composition space. We then share how this composition exercise is an effective teaching tool. Next, we show ways that this presentation style maximizes learning with image and speech coordination and skills of analysis and synthesis. Then we introduce how Pecha Kuchas give students the opportunity to teach and to work with technological tools in authentic ways. Finally, implications for future practice in developing compositions using oral delivery with visuals are discussed.

While recognising the fact that historically teacher education and adolescent literacy are two fields that have had limited intellectual contact, the development of reading literacy is increasingly now accepted internationally as a core responsibility of all teachers and teacher educators. Adopting a socio-cultural perspective, this paper, drawn from the Learning to Teach Study, focused on the beliefs, knowledge and experiences regarding reading literacy of Irish post-primary student teachers on one initial teacher education (ITE) programme. The data were collected through three interviews with each of 17 student teachers. Results suggest that the surveyed student teachers had some concerns about their own literacy, had narrow conceptions of literacy, tended not to see it as their responsibility, held a minimal threshold view of literacy and viewed new digital technologies as a resource and motivator for their students’ literacy learning. Results are discussed in terms of how student teachers’ knowledge o...

This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students’ error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA and social studies? Are there significant differences in the error rates between L1 and L2 students in ELA? Do L1 and L2 students differ in how frequently they make the most common errors in ELA? Written work of 10th and 12th grade students in five states was collected. The sample included 178 essays (120 in ELA and 58 in social studies) from 67 students (33 10th graders and 34 12th graders; 49 native English speaking students and 18 English learners). Results indicate that there were significant differences in the frequencies of errors between ELA and social studies, with higher error rates in social studies. In addition, L2 writers had significantly higher error rates than L1 writers in ELA. Aside from a few types of errors (spelling, capitalization, and some punctuation errors), most types of errors appear relatively infrequently in school-sponsored writing. Moreover, the eight most common errors accounted for a little more than half of all errors, and these did not differ significantly between ELA and social studies writing or between L1 and L2 writers.

We present a review of literature drawn from two prominent journals in the fields of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL Quarterly) and English Education (Research in the Teaching of English) that publish writing research regarding secondary and lower-division postsecondary learners. The purpose of the review is to compare how the two journals represent conceptions of writing — conceptions that shape research designs, data analyses, and the interpretations of findings. Results suggest that, while the two journals share common theoretical concerns with the uses of language, they differ with respect to how they represent the goals and functions of extended written composition in educational settings. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research thatmore deliberately integrates knowledge across the respective fields of English Education and TESOL. Such an integrated approach, we argue, can ultimately help teachersmake more informed decisions about how best to differentiate writing instruction in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms.

Current adolescent literacy rates cause concerns at the number of students who graduate high school with basic or below-basic reading skills. The Common Core State Standards promote disciplinary literacy, which presents advanced literacy skills embedded in content area instruction. Disciplinary literacy is argued as a way to raise adolescent literacy rates. This literature review examines how Discourse theory frames disciplinary literacy as an apprenticeship model, and how instruction in mathematical Discourses focuses on communication and reasoning at the secondary level. Mathematical standards are analyzed for literacy features, and then studies of secondary mathematics classrooms are reviewed in light of these features. The review is offered to help mathematics teachers and literacy specialists build a shared knowledge base of mathematical literacy in secondary classrooms.

This article focuses on the literacy of the adolescents who, in most European countries, are about to leave or have recently left basic education with the assumption that they have the command of functional literacy as required in and for further studies, citizenship, work life and a fulfilling life as individuals. First, the overall performance level in the EU member countries with a special focus on poor literacy is examined. Also, the most persistent inequities in adolescent literacy are reviewed, including the gender gap, the socio-economic gap, the migrant gap and the digital gap. Secondly, the focus turns to developing adolescent literacy and reading education in Europe in a constantly changing global context with increasing literacy demands calling for a lifelong and a life-wide development of literacy. The article outlines elements of effective literacy education for adolescents in Europe.

The purpose of my article is to provide an opportunity for reflection on the merit of incorporating Silent Reading into secondary learning programmes. The role of Silent Reading in the learning programme has been the subject of recent research, yielding mixed findings. I explore the current issues that have arisen in research which warrant the consideration of practitioners, with a particular focus on adolescent learners. These issues are subsequently examined in light of findings from the recent West Australian Study in Adolescent Book Reading. Qualitative data from semi-structured, dyadic interviews were gathered and analysed, with the reflections of students providing insight into the current status of Silent Reading in secondary schools, and the efficacy of elements of contemporary models of Silent Reading.

This article examines the federal role in adolescent literacy from its roots in Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration with the Economic Opportunity Act (1964) through the Reading for Understanding grants of 2010. The authors consider the extent to which the recent attention to and changes in the federal approach to adolescent literacy can be explained through the policy regime framework. Specifically, the study traces shifts in the policy paradigm around adolescent literacy and asks whether key actors and issue specialists that have routinely been part of the reading education policy regime at the federal level have changed over time.

This article reports findings from a literature review on literacy instruction for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities. Nineteen empirical studies published between 1975 and 2011 were included in the review and analyzed based on characteristics of interventions. The results were examined to determine whether the state of research in this area indicates a comprehensive approach to literacy for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities. Results indicate that vocabulary instruction through sight word acquisition is still prevalent, instruction is not comprehensive, and instruction does not address recommendations from the field for adolescent literacy. However, innovative approaches to literacy instruction for this population are beginning to be explored. The current state of research on reading practices for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities, implications for practice, and suggestions for new directions in research are discussed.

In this article, the authors take a hard look at the changing nature of language disorders across time with a particular focus on the specific challenges facing adolescents. The high school setting can be an especially demanding one academically, but it is also a place and time where social and emotional challenges interact with—and have an impact on—students’ linguistic and curricular success. The article outlines selected language-based literacy initiates with an eye toward consideration of the social and emotional components of intervention.

21st-century adolescents face greater literacy demands than their predecessors. Consequently, many state and local school systems have initiated efforts to increase and improve literacy instruction for adolescent learners. Using survey research, this study strove to gauge middle and high school content-area teachers' foundational knowledge of adolescent literacy. The researcher used three policy documents published by the Carnegie Corporation as the foundation for the survey, which consisted of close-ended questions. The researcher utilized an online survey platform to locate and solicit potential participants. A total of 161 teachers participated. First, descriptive data were computed to determine participants' knowledge of adolescent literacy in general as well as subcomponents of the survey. Second, an ANOVA was computed to compare the performance of content-area subgroups. Results indicated that content-area teachers have limited declarative knowledge of adolescent literacy. Furthermore, data indicate...

This paper reviews best practices for effective adolescent literacy programs. A focus is placed on five areas of literacy instruction including word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation. Each of these areas is discussed as well as how each area is relevant to reading and understanding narrative and content-area text at high levels.

Beyond mechanics and spelling conventions, academic writing requires progressive mastery of advanced language forms and functions. Pedagogically useful tools to assess such language features in adolescents’ writing, however, are not yet available. This study examines language predictors of writing quality in 51 persuasive essays produced by high school students attending a linguistically and ethnically diverse inner-city school in the Northeastern United States. Essays were scored for writing quality by a group of teachers, transcribed and analyzed to generate automated lexical and grammatical measures, and coded for discourse-level elements by researchers who were blind to essays’ writing quality scores. Regression analyses revealed that beyond the contribution of length and lexico-grammatical intricacy, the frequency of organizational markers and one particular type of epistemic stance marker (i.e., epistemic hedges) significantly predicted persuasive essays’ writing quality. Findings shed light on discourse elements relevant for the design of pedagogically informative assessment tools.

This study was designed to explore perceptions and lived experiences of avid adolescent male readers, in order to better understand their development as readers. This study explored: (1) how previous reading experiences influence the development of the avid adolescent male reader and (2) how the reading habits and preferences of avid adolescent male readers are socially constructed. Rosenblatt's (1978) Transactional Theory of Literary Work forms the theoretical framework of this study. Rosenblatt (1978) argued that as readers engage with texts, they bring an individual schema to these literary transactions. This prior knowledge and experience are the lens through which the individual reader understands the content of the text. Even when reading the same text, readers respond to the text in individual ways, based on their individual schema. Through the use of a naturalistic inquiry design, data was generated through a series of interviews with the participants. Data analysis was qualitative and iterative, triangulated with multiple interviews, interview mapping, thematic tables, dialogic memos, and researcher field notes. Data analysis led to a better understanding of the development of the avid adolescent male reader, including: (a) the role of family culture on reading identity, (b) peer group influence on reading habits of avid adolescent male readers, and (c) transactional responses of avid adolescent male readers both in and out of educational settings. Data generated during interviews illuminated the complex, individuated and interwoven nature of the elements present in the development of the avid adolescent male reader. Finally, this study gives insight into how understanding the development of these readers may provide teachers with instructional strategies and reading opportunities that support all developing readers. Ph. D.

Background: There is increasing concern that as students move through to adolescence, motivation toward reading declines. When there is limited desire to read, less time is spent with text, which can eventually impact on literacy acquisition. A systematic synthesis of research which has measured outcomes relating to motivation and/or engagement as part of a reading intervention was conducted. Despite the wealth of literature surrounding adolescent literacy, only six studies met the inclusion criteria. The review highlighted a number of affective factors that may contribute to effective reading interventions. However, to date there has been no research on how Educational Psychologists (EPs) might work with students to address affective factors in reading.Methods/ participants: An affective reading programme structured around a Motivational Interviewing (MI) based intervention was implemented with three Year 8 students in one high-school. Students were identified as having a primary reading difficulty and perceived to be disengaged or low in motivation toward reading. Five- 50-minute sessions were facilitated on a fortnightly basis by the researcher. Analysis/ findings: Quantitative outcomes from pre-, post- and three-month follow-up indicated positive outcomes for two of the three students in relation to motivation and engagement toward reading. However, for one student, quantitative data were not indicative of self-report improvements across motivation domains. Qualitative data on the other hand suggested that all three students perceived the intervention to have a range of benefits. Four super-ordinate themes emerged from thematic analysis of the qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews, suggesting a perceived increase in motivation and engagement toward reading, in addition to increased self-efficacy. The current findings identified key factors in addressing reading motivation with adolescent students. Conclusion/ implications: The present study adds a valuable contribution to current theory and research within adolescent literacy. It raises awareness in acknowledging and addressing the needs and complexities of addressing motivation to read amongst reluctant readers. A structured dissemination strategy is discussed, along with some of the potential implications for EPs. Further, a discussion with regards to evidence-based and practice-based evidence in the context of this study is presented.

The complexities associated with new literacies make it difficult to determine the skills required to be literate in the 21st century. New literacies are the consequence of digital technologies (the Internet and other Information and Communication Technologies) that shape and re-shape the definition of literacy (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). These literacies, unlike print-based traditional texts of the 20th century, are dynamic, multifaceted, and structurally unpredictable texts that can be introduced in new texts formats, and can provide both new purposes for reading and new ways to interact with information (International Reading Association, 2007). Thus, to comprehend the new literacies, students must develop and employ skills to navigate the Internet and other ICTs that not only change daily, but also change the ways in which students read, write, communicate, and learn new information (see Leu et al., 2007). In consequence, it is difficult to conceptualize what it means to be literate, and to ascertain the skills that reinforce reading and discourse. The purpose of this study was to: (a) examine the extent to which cognitive factors (decoding, linguistic comprehension, prior knowledge, vocabulary, and nonverbal intelligence) contribute to online reading comprehension outcomes, and (b) investigate the role of skills related to the Internet and ICTs in online reading comprehension outcomes. Results from a series of hierarchical regression models revealed that online reading comprehension (ORC) was best explained by linguistic comprehension and prior knowledge among a group of 269 sixth-grade Dutch students. Vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and decoding did not explain any additional variance beyond that which was explained by linguistic comprehension and prior knowledge. Additionally, a moderation analysis revealed that skills related to the Internet and ICTs did not moderate the relationship among linguistic comprehension, prior knowledge, and online reading comprehension.

This article explores how adolescents interact with multimodal texts across shifting contexts, including social, academic, and digital ones. The author considers the ability of teens to articulate the boundaries and fluidity of multiple discourse systems and to maneuver across and within them with ease. The author further explores pedagogical implications, including shifting power dynamics occurring in schools. A new model for schooling is suggested, which incorporates multiple discourses and promotes a new term, “relational neteracy.”

This study considers how adolescents compose historical arguments, and it identifies theoretically grounded predictors of the quality of their essays. Using data from a larger study on the effects of a federally funded Teaching American History grant on student learning, we analyzed students’ written responses to document-based questions at the 8th grade ( n = 44) and the 11th ( n = 47). We report how students use evidence (a hallmark of historical thinking), how students structure their historical arguments, and what kinds of argumentative strategies they use when writing about historical controversies. In general, better writers cite more evidence in their arguments than weaker writers, and older students demonstrate how to situate evidence in ways that are consistent with the discipline. Both the structure of students’ arguments and their use of evidence were predictive of the overall quality of their essays. Finally, students’ use of argumentation strategies revealed patterns relevant to the historical topic and sources in question, as well as to differences related to writing skill. In our sample, better writers used strategies based on facts and evidence from the documents more so than weaker writers and demonstrated the capacity to contextualize and corroborate evidence in their arguments.

Teachers, parents, and librarians are constantly looking for methods and materials that engage students as readers and motivate them to increase the time they spend reading. In this article we describe findings from a study of middle schoolers’ magazine reading habits that gave us a close look at the power of magazines as supplemental supports for struggling and reluctant readers as well as the specific reasons students gravitate toward magazines for leisure reading. We provide suggestions for the ways in which classroom teachers can leverage student interest in magazine reading to increase independent reading in school, and validate students’ out of school literacies.

Secondary preservice teachers (N = 67) in a required content area literacy course and 30-hour field experience presented tradebooks, biographies, as well as pre, during, and after reading lessons based on topics in their content area to middle and high school students. At the end of the semester, they were asked to complete an anonymous survey. Results revealed that before the semester, preservice teachers were unlikely to make these presentations in their future instruction. Preservice teachers underestimated the enthusiasm of the students and their cooperating teachers for all three of these presentations. There were positive correlations between preservice teachers' rating of the students' and cooperating teachers' enthusiasm and the likelihood that they would repeat these presentations in their future instruction.

Literacy skills taught in the elementary grades establish a good foundation but are not adequate for the demands of secondary content curriculum. In history, preservice teachers must be prepared with a solid content base along with the pedagogy for teaching that content. To better teach and enhance student writing, preservice teachers need to learn how to integrate discipline-specific literacy into their instruction, using instructional strategies that are explicitly taught with scaffold supports. The purpose of this article is to present instructional ideas and strategies designed to help students develop key cognitive skills in history and engage in deeper-level thinking as they learn to write like a historian. Each strategy is research-based and includes sample writing assignments.

Five qualitative multiple-case studies document adolescents' uses of Web-based resources and digital literacy skills to construct their online identities. Working from a perspective that integrates new literacies with multimodality, the researchers enlisted the help of five high school students who kept daily logs of the websites they visited for 8 months. The logs provided a focus for weekly, semi-structured individual interviews that were recorded, transcribed, and used to inform the next week's interviews. A six-step multilayered analysis of the data shows that students use a range of Web-based resources and digital literacy skills to construct their online identities. While such practices are connected to students' offline worlds, a scholarly debate exists concerning their relevancy for preparing youth to be contributing members of society.

Literacy instruction has shifted in recent years alongside acts of legislation. Areas of literacy education like adolescent literacy and RTI are now receiving increased attention, whereas phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency receive considerably less attention than 10 years ago. Comparative discussions describe “very hot” and “cold” topics as they relate to philosophy/approach, level, content, materials, and assessment in 2001 versus 2010. Educators can utilize this content information to inform their instruction and direct attention to needed areas within their own schools.

The article describes a successful intervention program in developing inferential comprehension in a sixth grader. Steve (pseudonym) was proficient in word reading, was able to detect explicit information while reading, but struggled with linking textual information to yield integral ideas. After 10 weeks of working with Steve on word analogies, reading/composing riddles, “solving” short mystery stories, and modeling think-alouds, there was a substantial progress of Steve's logical reasoning, meta-cognitive thinking, and inferential reading skills. Practical information for teachers regarding selection of assessment instruments, assessment interpretation, as well as instructional recommendations for students demonstrating difficulty with inferential comprehension is also provided.

This article presents 34 characteristics of texts and tasks (text features) that can make continuous (prose), noncontinuous (document), and quantitative texts easier or more difficult for adolescents and adults to comprehend and use. The text features were identified by examining the assessment tasks and associated texts in the national assessments of adult literacy administered by the U.S. Department of Education, as well as existing research in literacy, linguistics, reading, and mathematics. The contribution of the proposed text features to the overall ease or difficulty of literacy tasks has been largely validated through psychometric analyses. The article explains how knowledge of text features might enhance teacher preparation, professional development, and text selection or creation.