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“Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They will need literacy to cope with the flood of information they will find everywhere they turn. They will need literacy to feed their imaginations so they can create the world of the future. In a complex and sometimes even dangerous world, their ability to read will be crucial. Continual instruction beyond the early grades is needed. ”—Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, & Rycik, 1999, Position Statement from the International Reading Association |
INDIANA'S CONTINUED COMMITMENT TO MIDDLE GRADES READING
Even though eight years have passed since the IRA issued the above statement, its message is as timely as ever. Continual instruction is most certainly needed. According to the National Assessment on Education Policy, 70 percent of eighth grade students score below proficiency level in reading and writing as well. Seventy percent is an alarmingly high number of young adolescents beginning high school with reading skills so poor that they are destined for helplessness and failure.
On August 3, 2007, Representative Raul Grijalva (D–AZ) introduced the Success in the Middle Act, the first school improvement bill of its kind, directed specifically at the middle grades. His legislation calls for the authorization of $1 billion a year in formula grants for states to improve schools housing low-performing middle graders. These targeted schools feed into what Grijalva called “dropout factories,” nearly 2000 high schools that account for nearly half the nation’s dropouts.
By providing reading classes for all students, Indiana middle grades schools are making an important contribution toward efforts to solve the drop out problem. Middle grades schools in Indiana are committed to providing licensed reading teachers, reading classes, and appropriate reading materials in their quest to strengthen reading skills and stem the tide of dropouts.
Since Indiana is so firmly committed to having strong middle grades reading programs, we must continue to address the time, personnel, classroom, and library issues, and we must redirect our efforts toward making reading a vital and productive part of middle grades instruction. These efforts include:
School system leadership and support for the reading program;
Assessment of the school reading program;
Reading classes through the eighth grade for all students;
Licensed reading teachers as a part of the regular staff;
Standardized reading test results available to teachers;
Wide range of instructional materials in reading classrooms;
Strong school library acquisition and circulation of print materials;
School wide encouragement of reading; and
Connecting students with public libraries and other out-of -school reading activities.
Copies of the Middle Grades Reading Assessment were provided to all Indiana middle grades schools. For additional copies, send requests to <jh25@evansville.edu>.