Thank you to Greene County Public Schools for hosting the Adolescent Literacy onsite workshop facilitated by Dr. Sarah Lupo, James Madison University professor. Nothing is any more critical to success in high school than being able to use and access print. Dr. Lupo shared both practical strategies and research backing up proven intervention practices that make a difference. Follow her on twitter @DrSarahLupo or check out her new book Teaching Disciplinary Literacy in Grades K-6.
Pam: Sarah, you’ve written about this - but I am wondering if you could share why “struggle is not a bad word” when it comes to adolescent literacy?
Sarah: Sure, somewhere along the way we got the idea that adolescents need to read things that are easy, or, say, at their “level”, to make growth. There isn’t any research that supports this notion though. Instead, there is a wide body of literature that supports the notion that students make growth when they read things that are harder but with scaffolding and support. Thus, we want to aim for instruction that creates “productive struggle” for our learners. We learn more when we overcome things that are difficult (with scaffolding and support) than when things are always easy.
Pam: What’s one strategy or practice that secondary ELA teachers and reading specialists can use to effectively support adolescent readers to positively engage as readers?
Sarah: One simple thing is to have more discussion. Ask questions about what they are reading. Probe them to deepen their ideas. Another simple way is to listen to them read aloud and give feedback to support their decoding and fluency. Asking comprehension questions is helpful too.
Pam: If there’s one practice that we should stop doing to intervene with adolescent students with literacy, what would you tell principals and why?
Sarah: We should stop reading everything out loud to adolescents. Most often, adolescents have a vocabulary problem, not a decoding problem. Teachers mistakenly think that we can solve the reading problem by focusing more on decoding.
Pam: What important question do you think educators should dig into about adolescent literacy?
Sarah: How can we intervene for readers who are unable to fully access material in their disciplinary classes in an equitable way? Too often we take away an elective, often for the entirety of middle and high school, in order to support literacy and these interventions are often not working. We need first, a better system so students can still take electives and second, better interventions that are backed by the research. This includes making sure teachers have access to the knowledge it takes to support adolescent readers who have underlying reading issues.
Pam: What do we need to know about supporting foundational skills for older readers?
Sarah: The research base is different from elementary research on supporting foundational skills so we must be cautious not to try solutions that worked in elementary and assuming that will work in secondary. Rather, we need to look at the research that works for older readers, particularly around how to support fluency and decoding.