Read for Good's sponsored Readathon gives children in schools a purpose to read, combined with freedom to choose what they read, on their own terms, free from assessment or evaluation. The sponsorship money helps to provide a regular supply of new books and storyteller visits to the UK's major children's hospitals and supports school libraries.…

This study examined the efficacy of a supplemental, multicomponent adolescent reading intervention for middle school students who scored below proficient on a state literacy assessment. Using a within-school experimental design, the authors randomly assigned 483 students in grades 6-8 to a business-as-usual control condition or to the Strategic…

This study used multigroup structural equations to evaluate the possibility that a theory-driven, evidence-based, yearlong reading program for sixth-grade struggling readers moderates the interrelationships among elements of the simple model of reading (i.e., listening comprehension, word reading, and reading comprehension; Hoover & Gough,…

"Academy of READING"® is an online program that aims to improve students' reading skills using a structured and sequential approach to learning in five core areas--phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) identified 38 studies of "Academy of READING"® for adolescent…

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…

Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history in order to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives, according to the International Reading Association, which also notes, "Adolescents need high levels of literacy to…

This Research Connections column describes the background to and the research base for the San Diego Unified School Districts' federally funded Striving Readers Project. The curriculum for the project was developed out of a longitudinal study into the literacy experiences of secondary students in New Zealand and from exploratory work in San Diego…

This article illustrates how the use of the basic elements of a story can help create an event that will stimulate imagination and encourage further reading. Margaret Robison, the librarian at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind (VSDB) in Staunton, Virginia, decided that for Teen Read Week she would use a popular series as a bridge to…

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…

Two pressing education reforms entail improving students' reading skills and improving high schools in the United States. In this article, the authors focus on both of these issues by adding the voices of students in an underperforming high school to the discussion about reading reform. We present the results of a larger study pertaining…

Noting that Indiana is poised to take active steps toward becoming a community of readers for its young adolescent citizens, this pamphlet discusses the foundations laid by the Middle Grades Reading Improvement program and plans for the Middle Grade Reading Network. The pamphlet discusses: how Indiana's schools have "failed" young…

Describes the Reading Is Fundamental Program (RIF), whose reading motivation concept is simple: young people who get the opportunity to freely choose and to own books may begin to experience reading as a pleasurable activity. (Author/LLS)

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…

Describes an Israeli reading program for disadvantaged adolescents based on verbal exercises using informative, literary, and speculative texts to improve their reading comprehension and cognitive functions. (HOD)