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Contents
The State of Adolescent Literacy Today
Educating the Educators
Family, Communities and Peers
Adolescent Literacy and Public Policy
Standards and Assessment
Next Steps
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Educating the Educators
In-Service
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Suggested Reading
Donald D. Deshler, Annemarie S. Palincsar, Gina Biancarosa, and
Marnie Nair, Informed
Choices for Struggling Adolescent Readers. Newark, DE: Carnegie
Corporation of New York.
David, J. Francis, Mabel Rivera, Nonie Lesaux, Michael Kieffer,
Hector Rivera. Practical Guidelines for the Education of English
Language Learners: Research-Based Recommendations for Instruction and Academic Interventions.
Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction,
2006.
Standards
for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association, 2006.
Elizabeth Sturtevant. The
Literacy Coach: A Key to Improving Teaching and Learning in Secondary
Schools. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education,
2003.
Joseph K. Torgesen et al. Academic
Literacy Instruction for Adolescents: A Guidance Document from
the Center for Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation,
Center on Instruction, 2007.
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In Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading, Dr. Catherine Snow writes that, “few if any professional development efforts have concerned themselves with teachers’ personal growth trajectories, focusing instead on the needs of schools and districts, often as part of school-reform efforts. Hence, existing approaches are unlikely to help teachers ‘view themselves as lifelong learners and continually strive to improve their practice…Given the pressure to improve performance on external assessments in our current reform zeal, it is possible that the failure to address the individual development needs and aspirations of teachers may, in the long run, prove to be the Achilles’ heel of professional development.” 1
Carnegie Corporation of New York is addressing and working to remediate this failure by:
- Funding innovative and effective professional development programs for teachers that can serve as models for other programs, as well as promising research studies on which future such programs might be based.
- Incenting schools of education and school districts to add professional development programs for not only new teachers, but also teachers well into their careers.
An example of a promising research initiative that the Corporation is currently funding is a RAND Corporation study on the impact and implementation of middle school reading coaches.
Grantee Spotlight
RAND Corporation Study on the Impact of Coaching
Literacy coaches provide support to teachers that need assistance in making content area courses more comprehensible. Many educators hope that this sort of coaching might be able to improve the literacy performance of middle and high school students, whose literacy scores have remained stagnant even as younger students’ achievement scores have steadily improved.
There is, however, no empirical evidence yet that ties literacy coaching to better prepared teachers and, by extension, increased student achievement. The RAND Corporation study is seeking to provide this empirical evidence by evaluating the implementation and impact of literacy coaches in Florida on teachers and their students.
An example of an effective professional development program for teachers that is already serving as a model for other programs nationwide is another Carnegie grantee: the Center for Applied Special Technologies or CAST.
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Grantee Spotlight
David Rose, the Founding Director and Chief Scientist/Cognition and Learning of CAST, writes that,
“In the early part of the 20th century, Andrew Carnegie recognized the critical importance of literacy for a sustainable democracy and focused his philanthropy on building local public libraries. As we begin the 21st century, the importance of literacy is even more critical to a democracy, but new technologies have drastically altered the literacy landscape.
Our project retains Carnegie’s original goal but uses new tools. To build a democratic literacy in the information age we can no longer depend upon printed books resting on the shelves of local libraries. We seek instead to leverage the power and flexibility of the World Wide Web as a foundation for building literacy. Our project embeds research-based strategies for teaching reading directly into the new media and tools of the web. Within the tools that students actually use — like browsers and web pages — we embed the intensive mentoring and practice that students will need to be strategic and successful citizens in the information age.”2
Using their “Universal Design for Learning,” CAST provides educators with the tools to overcome such barriers as:
- “Learning disabilities such as dyslexia
- English language barriers
- Emotional or behavioral problems
- Lack of interest or engagement
- Sensory and physical disabilities”
CAST’s professional development programs include consultation services and seminars on various topics related to the advancement of literacy education — including progressive assessment, cognitive disabilities and limited English proficiency challenges, among many others.
To view CAST’s professional development opportunities and future events, please visit their webpage at http://www.cast.org/pd/index.html
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Resources for Educators
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