The Adolescent Literacy KnowledgeBase

This KnowledgeBase archive includes content and external links that were accurate and relevant as of September 30, 2019.

The Writing Successful Grants KnowledgeBase is an online resource aiding education professionals in their pursuit of public and private grants to support local programs. Its five elements contain information and resources that assist the grant seeker with developing their project, writing the grant proposal and managing the grant upon its award.

Task 6: Integrate with Social Sciences

Guideline: Literacy plays an important part in social sciences. Middle and high school teachers can improve adolescent literacy through incorporating vocabulary instruction and comprehension strategy instruction in their lesson planning. Possessing such an awareness enables middle and high school teachers to enhance instruction to facilitate student comprehension of social science concepts and build background knowledge for future learning.

Resources

TOOLS

Adolescent Literacy Toolkit

This link to the Council of Chief State School Officers' Adolescent Literacy Toolkit provides resources for states and high school content area teachers.

Comprehension Strategies

This page at AdLit.org contains a library of comprehension strategies teachers can use in the classroom before, during, and after reading a text.

Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People

As noted at its website, "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People is a reading list of exceptional books for use in social studies classrooms, selected by twelve social studies educators. This is an annual project of the National Council for the Social Studies and the Children's Book Council."

PRACTICAL TIPS

Reading Strategies

This link to the Ohio Resource Center for Mathematics, Science and Reading offers a compilation of reading strategies aimed at the adolescent student. Though focused on the Ohio Academic Content Standards, the basic strategies may be useful to all middle and high school teachers.

References

Bringing Literacy Strategies into Content Instruction

As noted in its introduction, this Center on Instruction document "provides research-based guidance on academic literacy instruction in the content areas." The vignettes offered provide examples of how literacy instruction can be integrated into content area instruction.

From State Policy to Classroom Practice: Improving Literacy Instruction for All Students

This National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) document addresses moving state-level literacy instruction policy to classroom practice.

Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas

This link is to the Alliance for Excellent Education's report Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement. It discusses multiple aspects of adolescent literacy development from achieving basic reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills to more advanced literacy skills that will enable middle and high school students succeed in academic content areas.

Reading in the Disciplines: The Challenges of Adolescent Literacy

This link is to the Carnegie Corporation of New York's report addressing adolescent literacy in the content areas. The report discusses the following content areas: science, mathematics, literature, and history.