New Programs to Promote Literacy Achievement

• In Event: Integrating Research, Practice, and Design: A 10-Year Collaborative Effort to Improve Middle-Grades Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The SERP-BPS work revealed urgent needs in middle grades classrooms – students were disengaged, many were unable to read their content-area texts, and the level of work expected was low. To some extent, this situation reflected the presence in classrooms of a significant minority of students reading 3-4 years below grade level. In an effort to ensure their access to content, teachers often lectured about it rather than giving assignments that would require reading and writing.

In responding to the needs identified by BPS, the SERP-BPS partnership developed two programs: Word Generation, a 4th-8th grade cross-disciplinary discussion-based program designed to promote academic language, perspective taking, and argumentation skills. Word Generation presented content related to current events, social studies, and science in the context of brief, engaging texts, multiple opportunities for peer as well as whole-class discussion, and well-supported writing tasks. One key feature of the Word Generation model was the distribution of responsibility for teaching about the selected topics over all major content areas in grades 6-8, ensuring that math, science, and social studies teachers were as involved as English Language Arts teachers in supporting students’ literacy development.

The Strategic Adolescent Literacy Initiative (STARI) was designed along many of the same principles as Word Generation, but with additional skill-targeted components designed to provide extra supports to students reading 3 years or more below grade level. Thus, in the context of engaging topics and accessible readings, STARI also provided regular partner reading to support fluency, explicit instruction about decoding multisyllabic and multimorphemic words, and used the fluency passages as way to provide access to background information needed to comprehend the longer texts assigned.

Both Word Generation and STARI have been rigorously evaluated in BPS and in other districts. Results suggest substantial effects on targeted skills, especially in those classrooms/schools where implementation was systematic and of high quality.

Authors

• Catherine E. Snow, Harvard University

• Lowry Elizabeth Hemphill, Wheelock College