TALKING POINTS FOR YOUNG ADOLESCENT READING

Prior to the movement toward junior high and middle schools, most young adolescents attended K-8 schools where students each day participated in both reading and English classes.  Reading teachers were responsible for reading skills and practice and for engaging students with content books, newspapers, and magazines.  English teachers taught oral communication, the writing process, and the language skills of grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling.  Following a secondary school model, most middle and junior high schools eliminated reading classes and passed on responsibility for reading to language arts teachers. As a result, there is less time for reading and for writing; classes are taught by teachers without reading licenses/certification, and in 2003, the U. S.  Department of Education found that 66 percent of eighth grade students were not proficient in reading.

            The National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the reading skills of 12^th graders tested in 2005 were significantly worse than those of students in 1992.  The share of students lacking basic high school reading skills rose to 27 percent from 20 percent in 1992.  The share of those proficient in reading dropped to 35 percent from 40 percent in 1992. 

On January 3, 2007, Elissa Gootman wrote in the New York Times that In New York State, grade-by-grade testing conducted for the first time last year showed that in rich and poor districts alike, reading scores plunge from the fifth to sixth grade, when most students move to middle school, and continue to decline through eighth grade.  The pattern is increasingly seen as a critical impediment to tackling early high school dropout rates as well as the achievement gap separating black and white students.

        To restore reading classes and build communities of young adolescent readers, middle grades schools with sixth, seventh, and/or eighth grade students; colleges; and federal and state governments should be encouraged to provide direction and funding for the following activities:

• Federal and state governments should fund programs during the school year and in the summer to improve reading skills for struggling young adolescent readers who are predicted to drop out of high school.
• States should provide course descriptions for middle grades reading classes separate from language arts course descriptions. 
• States should provide young adolescent reading certification/licenses for middle grades similar to that provided for other middle grades subjects. 
• States and middle grades schools should encourage teachers to seek young adolescent reading certification/licensing.  The encouragement involves an awareness of college programs leading to reading certification/licensing and to providing stipends for teachers to participate in evening or summer programs.
• Colleges should provide programs that enable teacher candidates to obtain young adolescent reading certification/licenses.  Most programs leading to young adolescent certification/licenses involve arts and sciences departments.  For example, math teachers take math courses from arts and sciences faculty.  Since these departments do not have reading specialists, the programs should come from education units.
• Middle grades schools should provide reading classes with licensed reading teachers for all young adolescents.  All middle grades students have mathematics classes, and their teachers have mathematics certification/licenses.  Reading classes should be provided in a similar manner.
• Middle grades schools should provide reading teachers with a wide variety of instructional materials appropriate for the reading levels of students.  In a typical middle grades reading class, the reading ability of students ranges from primary to high school levels.
• Middle grades schools should provide current, appealing, high-interest, useful books and other print materials in their school libraries.  Two new books per student should be purchased annually to keep collections current.  There is considerable evidence that middle grades schools with appropriate collections have high circulation of print materials.
• Middle grades schools should help connect students and their families with public libraries and other community-based programs. Many middle grades students do not have public library cards and are not familiar with their local public libraries.
• Middle grades schools should feature an environment where reading is valued, encouraged, and supported. School Web sites should promote reading and provide a link to the local public library.  Posters, display cases, and bulletin boards should highlight reading. 

For more information, contact

Jack Humphrey

Middle Grades Reading Network

University of Evansville

1800 Lincoln Avenue

Evansville, IN 47722

http://mgrn.evansville.edu

812-423-5570

jh25@evansville.edu