A look at three exemplary programs aimed at older readers
For years, most of the focus on reading in U.S. schools has been on the early grades. The goal is to get students off to a solid start so they will be ready when the focus shifts from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” in the upper elementary grades and beyond.
Still, educators know that continued emphasis on reading is needed when students reach the middle school and high school levels. Reading assignments in the content areas are often complex, and students need to learn new strategies in order to absorb the material. Also, some students have fallen behind and really struggle with more difficult reading assignments.
Three of the 2006 winners of the International Reading Association’s Exemplary Reading Program Awards focused on issues relating to adolescent literacy.
Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama, is nationally known for its strong literacy focus and commitment to addressing the problems of struggling readers through identification and intervention. After analyzing student data, Buckhorn transformed its approach to teaching and learning, using multiple instructional approaches to meet students’ individual needs, incorporating research-based strategies across the curriculum, and embedding professional learning opportunities to focus on improving student comprehension.
When Buckhorn joined the Alabama Reading Initiative, 225 of 331 students entering 9th and 10th grade were reading and comprehending below grade level. After four years of strategic, research-based reading instruction, 100% of the students in Buckhorn’s senior class passed the reading portion of Alabama’s rigorous grade-level graduation exam. Those results have held steady for the past three years. In addition, the scores of 10th and 11th graders exceed district and state averages.
Buckhorn is one of five schools highlighted in a 2005 book titled Creating a Culture of Literacy. This book, which was underwritten by the Gates Foundation, was distributed to every secondary school principal in the United States.
Buckhorn emphasizes reading in a number of ways. For instance, both teachers and students participate in reading groups outside of school. A book club for boys offers a place for adolescent males to develop a love of reading outside the classroom. Adult males from the community, including a local newspaper reporter, have served as mentors for the program.
Like the program at Buckhorn High School, the reading program at Rodney E. Thompson Middle School in Stafford, Virginia, has been described in a book: Leading a Successful Reading Program: Administrators and Reading Specialists Working Together to Make It Happen (Nancy DeVries Guth and Stephanie Stephens Pettengill, International Reading Association, 2005).
Every sixth- and seventh-grade student is enrolled in a reading enrichment course, along with eighth graders who do not take a foreign language. Teachers work in teams of three or four, with each one teaching a period of reading in addition to his or her content area.
The reading enrichment course supports the language arts class, but it differs in two ways. For one thing, students are grouped by ability. The groups with the higher readers are larger, and the groups with the lower readers are kept smaller. At the end of each nine-week period, the team meets to discuss progress, and students can be moved to a more appropriate group when necessary.
The other difference between reading enrichment and language arts is the materials that are used. During reading enrichment, students read novels, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Many of the trade books in Thompson’s well-stocked resource room reinforce the curriculum at each grade level.
The teacher and reading specialist collaborate to make sure students receive materials at their independent or instructional reading level. This allows reluctant readers the opportunity for success, provides avid readers the opportunity to be challenged, and encourages participation, discussion, and active learning among all students.
Teachers create lessons and assignments designed to motivate students to read, write, and think during the reading enrichment period. Activities include performing Readers Theatre, comparing movies and novels, creating Utopian societies after reading The Giver or Gathering Blue, and writing and delivering campaign speeches after reading The Kid Who Ran for President.
The reading enrichment class provides many benefits instructionally and also allows the teachers and students to get to know each other better. Reading and discussing a novel together are much more personal experiences than working on algebraic equations or identifying the different states of matter, and they help teachers see their students in a multifaceted way. The reading enrichment class is just one component of the Thompson program, but it is a key one.
At Geary Elementary/Middle School in Left Hand, West Virginia, students, parents, teachers, and community members have shared their love of reading through a program called Read From the Heart. The award-winning project has provided opportunities to students at all grade levels (preK to grade 8) to enjoy a wide variety of literature and develop as lifelong readers.
As part of the program, a parent or community volunteer visited each classroom and shared a book with the students. Teachers, parents, and community members distributed free books to all students and encouraged them to read with their parents. The school also scheduled a Read From the Heart Literacy Fair that enabled students and parents to display interesting ways they shared their love of reading. Project ideas included PowerPoint presentations, dramatizations, story boards, and dioramas.
Read From the Heart, which was honored by the West Virginia Reading Association, is just one aspect of Geary Elementary/Middle School’s award-winning program.
Spotlight shines on adolescent reading. (February 2007). Reading Today, 24(4), 37.
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