A picture is worth a thousand words... but an article is not limited to a thousand words

This week we read two articles for our class, "The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words" and "Becoming the Reading Mentors Our Adolescents Deserve: Developing a Successful Sustained Silent Reading Program." They were both insightful and informational about the literacy needs in our schools today.

One statistic that stood out to me was how about 1 million adolescents struggle with reading in America and the unfortunate issue is that most programs to remedy the problem is usually a one-size-fits-all-type program. I was reminded with the need to individualize the programs to meet the needs of THE STUDENT--not the students, not the whole school--but for the student. Each student struggles with different aspects of reading so it is important to figure out what in order to prevent wastefulness of time and resources. In the article, "The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words" the researchers documented the stories of several students and reading these excerpts, I recognized the need to give students choice. When the students are given options in class activities, they tend to be more motivated and the resources can be more tailored to their individual needs. Another surprising point was that many parents wanted to be involved in their students' reading development. I think it is important to invite the parents to get involved if they would like to be.

In the second article, the resounding takeaway was choice, choice, choice. Many students today are unmotivated to read and it has a lot to do with the fact that we have limited what the students can read. In the classroom, students should be given a SSR time to read whatever topic is appealing to them. And when the students read, the teacher should as well or in some way, participate with the readers. There are several strategies the authors mentioned in this article that provide a great reading environment as well so I have posted the information for both articles below!

The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words.

By : Pitcher, Sharon M.¹ spitcher@towson.edu; Martinez, Gilda¹ gmartinez@towson.edu; Dicembre, Elizabeth A.¹ edicembre@towson.edu; Fewster, Darlene¹ dfewster@towson.edu; McCormick, Montana K.¹ mkmccormick@towson.edu
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, : 10813004, Published: 05/01/2010, Vol: 53, Issue: 8, Start Page: 636, Page Count: 10, Language: English
Becoming the Reading Mentors Our Adolescents Deserve: Developing a Successful Sustained Silent Reading Program.By : Lee, Valarie¹ leev@rowan.edu
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, DOI: 10.1002/JAAL.00026, : 10813004, Published: 11/01/2011, Vol: 55, Issue: 3, Start Page: 209, Page Count: 10, Language: English