The International Reading Association's Position Statement on Young Adolescents' Literacy Learning states, "It is during the middle years of schooling that most students refine their reading preferences, become sophisticated readers of informational text, and lay the groundwork for the lifelong reading habit." As the National Assessment of…

Using a popularized notion such as Web 2.0 limits research efforts by employing a binary construct, one initially prompted by commercial concerns. Instead, the authors of this article, commenting on Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes (2009), suggest that continuous, not dichotomous, change in the technologies of literacy and learning defines the…

Critical literacy has been on the map of literacy pedagogy internationally since the time of Freire, and more commonplace in the United States in the last few decades. However, in this column the authors argue that the common practices of critical literacy are insufficient for critical engagement with texts. The tools of critical literacy are…

Every two years the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), "the Nation's Report Card," reports the nation's average reading and math scores in grades 4 and 8. Despite the strong focus on reading under the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, the recent 2009 reading scores were not statistically different from those of 2007, which…

Purpose: This commentary is a personal reaction to A. G. Kamhi's (2007) article on the "narrow view" of reading and his suggestion that this view be adopted as a way to address the reading problems of children and adolescents. Method: In this article, I consider the narrow view of reading from an adolescent literacy perspective and discuss the…

This book calls attention to the policies and practices that discriminate against the silent majority of students in the American educational system. Arguments presented emphasize the collateral damage caused to average students by legislative mandates, administrative policies, teaching practices, parenting beliefs, and adherence to strict…

Four critical responses to an article, "The Role of Phonology and Phonologically Related Skills in Reading Instruction for Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing" (Wang, Trezek, Luckner, & Paul, 2008), are presented. Issue is taken with the conclusions of the article by Wang and colleagues regarding the "necessary" condition of phonological…

Reading skills are vital to student success, and those skills could be practiced with Shakespeare "if students are taught reading skills in the classroom." The problem is that many teachers of English do not consider themselves reading specialists and do not teach reading skills to their students. Fred L. Hamel notes that teachers in a recent…

Previous efforts at leveling the learning field for all students have not met with success. In 1955 Johnny allegedly could not read because of the "look-and-say method" of teaching reading; 26 years later he still could not read because most elementary schools continued to use the aforementioned unproductive system. Perhaps now is…

It is difficult to deny that many U.S. middle and high school students are in need of special literacy supports. Several indicators of declining literacy achievement have shifted national attention toward struggling and striving adolescent readers. More than ever, secondary schools are under enormous pressure to find ways of improving performance…

The "elephant in the room" when we talk about preparing critical thinkers for the 21st century, Gallagher believes, is U.S. students' lack of reading proficiency and their general disinclination to read. Gallagher's provocative argument is that a significant factor behind the decline of reading in young people is a set of practices…

In this article, Vicki Jacobs argues that as the nation strives to improve the literacy achievement of U.S. adolescents, educators must reframe the current "crisis" as a critical point on a continuum of historical efforts to address the particular challenges of postprimary-grade reading. Specifically, Jacobs examines the definition of adolescent…

Traditionally, we English faculty have warned our students against simply identifying with a literary work's characters. For us, such attachments constitute "reading badly." But we engage in identifications, too, including ones with the work's author. A consideration of critical responses to "Benito Cereno" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enables us to…

The author's school had just been labeled a failing school by No Child Left Behind when its new principal arrived in the fall of 2007. In this demoralizing climate, teachers can get frustrated and choose to give up, or they can rise to the challenge, create a plan for improvement, and plunge into uncharted waters. This article discusses how the…

This paper is a reflection on the way that a background in sociocultural theory and research actually saved my teaching career by allowing me to shift from being a dispenser of knowledge to a cultural neophyte attempting to understand where he is. Teaching then is understood as a reading exercise which is undertaken in a particular place which…