Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices
This practice guide presents specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations that educators can use to improve literacy levels among adolescents in upper elementary, middle, and high schools.
Recommendation 1: Provide explicit vocabulary instruction.
Recommendation 2: Provide direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction.
Recommendation 3: Provide opportunities for extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation.
Recommendation 4: Increase student motivation and engagement in literacy learning.
Recommendation 5: Make available intensive individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by qualified specialists.
Recommendation 1: Provide explicit vocabulary instruction.
- Dedicate a portion of regular classroom lessons to explicit vocabulary instruction.
- Provide repeated exposure to new words in multiple contexts, and allow sufficient practice sessions in vocabulary instruction.
- Give sufficient opportunities to use new vocabulary in a variety of contexts through activities such as discussion, writing, and extended reading.
- Provide students with strategies to make them independent vocabulary learners.
Recommendation 2: Provide direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction.
Recommendation 3: Provide opportunities for extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation.
Recommendation 4: Increase student motivation and engagement in literacy learning.
Recommendation 5: Make available intensive individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by qualified specialists.