Young adolescents are at a critical stage in their schooling. They are consolidating and improving their reading skills. By exploring what supports these 11- to 13-year-old students in reading from a wider systemic perspective, educators and policy-makers can better understand the complex factors which support reading development. This article…

In the past 2 decades, researchers (often working closely with parents, teachers, and other school staff members) have conducted studies that have substantially increased understanding how to effectively teach children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) to read. This research focus has been fueled by increased societal expectations…

Adolescents in the United States and their teachers face an enormous academic challenge with respect to reading comprehension. College and career readiness standards outlined in the Common Core (2012) place increased emphasis on preparing students to read increasingly complex text across a range of disciplinary content areas. At issue is how to…

This study investigated teachers' efficacy and implementation in the context of a supplemental intervention for struggling adolescent readers. It examined teachers' efficacy at the start of their intervention training and investigated relationships among teachers' efficacy, implementation, and students' reading progress. The efficacy and…

Addressing the reading needs of adolescent learners living in rural areas may create challenges for teachers and administrators in the age of accountability. This study addressed this issue by implementing two explicit instructional approaches with struggling adolescent readers (n = 49) in a rural middle school in the southeastern United States.…

This purpose of this research study was to investigate the role of effective principals and how that role relates to the improvement of adolescent reading skills. This research study identified three strategies that were utilized by principals in an effort to develop effective reading skills in adolescent students which are: (1) effective program…

"Accelerated Reader"[TM] is a guided reading intervention used to supplement regular reading instruction in K-12 classrooms. Its aim is to improve students' reading skills through reading practice and quizzes on the books students read. The "Accelerated Reader"[TM] program calls for students to select and read a book and then…

Project READ (Reading Efficiency and Delinquency) during its first year involved 4,330 juveniles in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Designed to improve the reading ability of incarcerated juvenile offenders, the program was based on two important facts. A survey of correctional institutions during 1974 assessed the reading abilities of…

This book offers middle and high school principals (with or without a background in reading instruction or curriculum) the tools to help teachers and lead their schools to reading excellence. The book presents the current status of student achievement in America, links the importance of reading to learning, clarifies the learning process of…

The reading achievement of two age groups (eleven- and fifteen-year-olds) was surveyed in Northern Ireland's schools during 1976, and the results were compared to those of a similar study in 1972. Two significant findings emerged: an increase in reading standards of eleven-year-olds, and a decrease in severe reading retardation at both age levels.…

Struggling adolescent readers need interventions that provide them with opportunities to read more and to read better. The authors examine two case studies of interventions at work and propose criteria on which to evaluate intervention programs. Their review of the evidence on these programs for struggling adolescent readers suggests that at least…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) States Showing Some Reading Improvements: Early Grades Raise Scores, but Older Students Continue to Struggle; (2)…