69´«Ă˝

69´«Ă˝ & Literacy

69´«Ă˝ Problems

By Anthony Rebora — October 27, 2005 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

Results from a closely watched national test released this month have heightened concerns about adolescents’ reading skills. While overall scores on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress—which tests a sampling of 4th and 8th graders in math and reading—showed at least modest improvement since 2003, the average reading score for 8th graders declined by a point. Just 31 percent of the 8th graders scored at or above the proficient level in reading—a figure that has barely budged since the first NAEP scores were issued in 1992.

The NAEP results add to a growing body of research and commentary suggesting that many young people today are not learning—or at least not using—advanced reading skills. In a from a range of reading assessments, for example, researchers from the RAND Corp. concluded that while schools’ focus on reading in the primary grades has generated some gains, “many children are not moving beyond basic decoding skills to fluency and comprehension.”

Over the long term, that breakdown may be contributing to other worrying trends identified recently. Fifty-three percent of all college students must take remedial courses, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. And in the past 20 years, the National Endowment for the Arts found in a widely publicized , young adults (ages 18-34) have gone from being the group most likely to read literature to the least likely.

Such patterns have created a surge of interest among educators in penetrating the unique reading problems of today’s adolescents and teens. In a 2004 report titled a panel of education researchers assembled by the Carnegie Corporation and the Alliance for Excellent Education identified 15 key elements to help adolescents move beyond word recognition to more purposeful reading. The items strictly related to classroom instruction include intensively teaching comprehension strategies; making texts available that encompass a wide range of topics and reading levels; holding small-group student discussions of texts; allowing for independent reading and student-selected materials; and focusing on writing.

If the 69´«Ă˝ Next panel’s recommendations suggest the importance of students’ personal engagement with texts, the lead article in a recent issue of the magazine Educational Leadership devoted to reading comprehension is more explicit. Titled the article criticizes standard school practices that discourage adolescent students’ individual inclinations in reading. Authors Gay Ivey and Douglas Fisher instead encourage sustained silent-reading periods, giving kids a wide range of books to choose from, and injecting personal reflections into discussions of books. “69´«Ă˝ need instruction,” they write, “but mostly they need opportunities to negotiate real texts for real purposes.”

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69´«Ă˝
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

69´«Ă˝ & Literacy What Teachers Say They Need Most to Help Struggling Teen Readers
Educators also want more time in the school day to work on reading skills, a new survey finds.
4 min read
Close cropped photo of an open book with a teen girl's eyes peering over the top of the book.
Jack Hollingsworth/Getty
69´«Ă˝ & Literacy Opinion Boys Don't Love to Read. Could This Former Teacher Be on to Something?
Boys are falling behind in reading. Books with military-history themes may help reverse this trend.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
69´«Ă˝ & Literacy Is Handwriting a Lost Art? What One College’s Kerfuffle Over Cursive Can Tell Us
Since 2014, there’s been a resurgence of cursive and handwriting education.
6 min read
A photograph of a close up of cursive handwriting that is undecipherable
E+
69´«Ă˝ & Literacy Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Student Literacy Data?
Answer 7 questions about the importance of student literacy data and how to collect and use it.