Quantum Units Education®

Introduction

1. The instructional needs related to literacy for students in 4th and 5th grade have more in common with those of students in middle and high school than they do with students in early elementary grades.

Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices

2. Recent data indicates that ___ percent of 8th grade students fall below the proficient level in their ability to comprehend the meaning of text at their grade level, while ___ percent read below the basic level.

3. Many teachers report feeling unprepared to help their students or do not think that teaching reading skills in content-area classes is their responsibility.

4. While mastering adolescent literacy, students need to build knowledge by:

Scope of the Practice Guide

5. Literacy experts recommend that professional development focus on general reading improvement techniques rather than addressing the specific literacy demands of different disciplines.

Checklist For Carrying Out the Recommendations

6. Recommendations for increasing the reading ability of adolescents include each of the following EXCEPT:

Recommendation 1: Provide Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

7. Reading comprehension is clearly the ultimate goal of reading instruction.

Brief Summary of Evidence to Support the Recommendation

8. In the early stages of reading, most of the words in grade-level texts are familiar to students as part of their _________________ vocabulary.

9. Which of the following is NOT one of the recommended ways to repeatedly expose students to vocabulary?

How to Carry Out the Recommendation

10. Researchers estimate that it may take as many as eleven exposures for a student to learn a new word.

Potential Roadblocks and Solutions

11. For adolescent students who have limited vocabularies, selecting ___________________ words remains an important instructional strategy.

Recommendation 2: Provide Direct and Explicit Comprehension Strategy Instruction

12. Reading comprehension strategies include summarizing, asking and answering questions, finding the main idea, and:

13. Direct and explicit instruction involves a series of steps that include all of the following EXCEPT:

Brief Summary of Evidence to Support the Evidence: Select Carefully the Text to Use

14. Using main-idea summarizing is difficult to do with informational texts, but much more appropriate for narrative texts.

How to Carry Out the Recommendation: Provide the Appropriate Amount of Guided Practice

15. The comprehension strategy of summarizing can be demonstrated briefly and with a few examples, but teaching the skill of predicting will likely require several steps within guided practice.

Teaching Comprehension Strategies

16. When teaching comprehension strategies, it is imperative that students understand that the goal is to read the passage for fluency.

Recommendation 3: Provide Opportunities for Extended Discussion of Text Meaning and Interpretation

17. Extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation should enable students to:

Brief Summary of Evidence to Support the Recommendation

18. The goal of adolescent literacy is not simply to enable students to obtain facts or literal meaning from text, but also to make deeper interpretations, _____________, and conclusions.

19. One large study of sustained discussion in language arts classes in middle and high schools found, on average, only ____minutes out of 60 were devoted to in depth exchanges between teachers and students.

Potential Roadblocks and Solutions

20. In general, students do not readily contribute their ideas during discussions because they are either not engaged by the topic or are afraid of getting negative feedback from the teacher or other students.

21. Since some teachers may lack the skills in behavior management, discussion techniques, or critical thinking to guide productive discussion and analysis of text meanings, professional development may be needed to build their skills in these areas.

Recommendation 4: Increase Student Motivation and Engagement in Literacy Learning-Brief Summary of Evidence to Support the Recommendation

22. Research suggests that when teachers encourage students' learning by emphasizing external incentives and reminding students of the impact of learning on grades, this will likely have a _____________effect on students' motivation and engagement.

23. Studies have consistently shown that students who have performance goals are more motivated, engaged, and are better test takers than students who have learning goals.

How to Carry Out the Recommendation

24. Educators should strive to provide a positive learning environment that promotes students' autonomy in learning.

25. Common themes that are present when using student goal setting, self-directed learning, and collaborative learning to increase reading engagement include each of the following EXCEPT:

Potential Roadblocks and Solutions

26. Content-area teachers should develop formative assessments that allow students to make their thinking visible and provide evidence of the problem-solving and critical-thinking strategies students use to comprehend and construct meaning.

Recommendation 5: Make Available Intensive and Individualized Interventions for Struggling Readers

27. Students who are unable to meet grade-level standards in literacy often require intensive, individualized, and ___________ reading intervention in order to improve their skills.

Brief Summary of Evidence to Support the Recommendation

28. On a recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment, about ________ of 4th graders and in the United States performed below the basic level, meaning that they will likely need intensive supplemental interventions in addition to regular classroom reading support.

29. Descriptive and correlational evidence suggests that struggling adolescent readers tend to use less efficient reading comprehension strategies than do more skillful readers.

How to Carry Out the Recommendation

30. The most practical method for increasing instructional intensity for smaller numbers of struggling readers is to provide supplemental individual instruction within the classroom.

Potential Roadblocks and Solutions

31. Timely and proper screening, diagnosis, and treatment of the source of struggling readers' difficulties are central to the success of an intervention strategy.

32. Although content area teachers should not be responsible for carrying out intensive interventions for struggling readers, they can be taught to use strategies to make texts more accessible to all students, including those who struggle with literacy.

33. In order to provide coherent and consistent instruction that enables students to succeed in reading across the curriculum, content area teachers should consult with:

Conclusion

34. It is often necessary that assistance for struggling readers be provided by a specialist who can monitor students' progress more effectively than a classroom teacher, and these interventions should be __________________.

35. While specific interventions are designed to focus on those with the weakest literacy skills, they will likely assist all students in improving their reading and comprehension skills.