Results from a closely watched national test released this month have heightened concerns about adolescents鈥� reading skills. While overall scores on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress鈥攚hich tests a sampling of 4th and 8th graders in math and reading鈥攕howed at least modest improvement since 2003, the average reading score for 8th graders declined by a point. Just 31 percent of the 8th graders scored at or above the proficient level in reading鈥攁 figure that has barely budged since the first NAEP scores were issued in 1992.
The NAEP results add to a growing body of research and commentary suggesting that many young people today are not learning鈥攐r at least not using鈥攁dvanced reading skills. In a from a range of reading assessments, for example, researchers from the RAND Corp. concluded that while schools鈥� focus on reading in the primary grades has generated some gains, 鈥渕any children are not moving beyond basic decoding skills to fluency and comprehension.鈥�
Over the long term, that breakdown may be contributing to other worrying trends identified recently. Fifty-three percent of all college students must take remedial courses, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. And in the past 20 years, the National Endowment for the Arts found in a widely publicized , young adults (ages 18-34) have gone from being the group most likely to read literature to the least likely.
Such patterns have created a surge of interest among educators in penetrating the unique reading problems of today鈥檚 adolescents and teens. In a 2004 report titled a panel of education researchers assembled by the Carnegie Corporation and the Alliance for Excellent Education identified 15 key elements to help adolescents move beyond word recognition to more purposeful reading. The items strictly related to classroom instruction include intensively teaching comprehension strategies; making texts available that encompass a wide range of topics and reading levels; holding small-group student discussions of texts; allowing for independent reading and student-selected materials; and focusing on writing.
If the Reading Next panel鈥檚 recommendations suggest the importance of students鈥� personal engagement with texts, the lead article in a recent issue of the magazine Educational Leadership devoted to reading comprehension is more explicit. Titled the article criticizes standard school practices that discourage adolescent students鈥� individual inclinations in reading. Authors Gay Ivey and Douglas Fisher instead encourage sustained silent-reading periods, giving kids a wide range of books to choose from, and injecting personal reflections into discussions of books. 鈥淪tudents need instruction,鈥� they write, 鈥渂ut mostly they need opportunities to negotiate real texts for real purposes.鈥�
