Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

Through a descriptive multiple-case study, the researcher explored the phenomenon of how beginning teachers in one rural, northeast Texas school district implement content-area reading strategies at the secondary level. What I Know-What I Want to Know-What I Learned (KWL), Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA),…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education programs focus on growing the STEM workforce. The problem is many middle and high school students in Texas require support from the STEM teacher to comprehend complex science texts. Research shows interest in science begins to decline in adolescence leading to a shortage of employees to…

This pilot study investigates content-area preservice teacher perceptions of literacy practices as humanizing pedagogy. Findings from open-ended survey questions and a focal interview suggest preservice teachers see the connection between literacy learning and the teaching of their content area. They also have a budding understanding of how…

This article shares findings from the implementation of an ongoing National Professional Development (NPD) project that advances second language literacy and biliteracy in secondary content areas. The project is part of a research-practice partnership between a large public university and two school districts in south Texas that engages in-service…

This qualitative study investigated high school reading programs and participants focusing on the insider perspectives of teachers and their students. The study occurred in two sites, one in a Southern state and the other in an Eastern state. The participants, five high school reading teachers and two to three students in each of their reading…

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of a content knowledge and reading comprehension treatment implemented by 8th-grade social studies teachers over the course of 1 school year. We randomly assigned 8th-grade students with reading difficulties to the intervention treatment condition (n = 45) or the business-as-usual comparison condition…

The education field must go beyond calling attention to an adolescent literacy crisis and the need for additional resources--a critical need--to treating adolescent literacy as the foundation for more ambitious efforts to improve middle and high schools in their entirety (Heller & Greenleaf, 2007; Jacob, 2008). Instruction around adolescent…

This newsletter focuses on the importance of reading and writing skills in all educational and career pathways. It includes a variety of strategies for integrating reading and writing skills across the curriculum--in academic, career/technical and fine arts courses--in ways that improve student achievement in reading and writing and in the content…