COMUNICACIÓN PARA EL BUEN VIVIR

In an effort to better understand elements of effective literacy instruction at the high school level, panels of reading researchers and experts have collaborated to provide recommendations that school leaders can utilize to develop school wide programs. Biancarosa and Snow (2006) describe fifteen elements that help support effective adolescent literacy programs in “Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy.” The elements are further divided into two sub-groups: instructional improvements and infrastructure improvements.

The first nine elements are focused on instructional practices; however, the sustainability of such practices is often dependent upon infrastructural improvements. Biancarosa and Snow

(2006) posit that the implementation of comprehension instruction, instruction embedded in content, motivation, collaboration, tutoring, diverse texts, writing, technology, and formative assessment will help improve adolescent literacy. The use of comprehension strategies to address adolescent literacy should be direct, explicit and varied, and teachers should explain “to students how and when to use certain strategies…[and] have students employ them in multiple context with texts from a variety of genres and subject areas” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 14). Content teachers are not expected to be reading teachers, but they are expected to use available resources, such as literacy coaches and language art teachers, to develop and implement strategies that help their students “read and write like historians, scientists, mathematicians, and other subject-area experts” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 15). While inspiring students to read and write as experts in specific content areas, students must be engaged in the instruction to maintain momentum to improve.

To motivate students to grow as adolescent readers, teachers can implement a myriad of strategies that will help improve student reading. Biancarosa and Snow (2006) suggest that activities that bring students together to work with text are effective; however, it is important for teachers to “provide scaffolding for engagement at every ability level in the class and promote better oral language and content-area skills by giving the students concrete problems to discuss or solve” (p. 17). The texts should be diverse, and teachers should expect students to use writing to connect with them. Furthermore, the integration of technology is also a beneficial instructional practice; it is “both a facilitator of literacy and a medium of literacy” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 19). If instructional strategies alone are not helping students improve their ability to read text, students should have the opportunity to participate in tutoring that focuses on individualized student needs and is offered during and or after the school day (Biancarosa &

Snow, 2006). Teachers should use daily formative assessment to evaluate individual student needs in order to adjust instructional strategies and to make appropriate recommendations for tutoring (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Biancarosa & Snow, 2006).

Beyond what teachers do instructionally, the infrastructure of the school must also support content literacy. For example, traditionally high school students spend about forty minutes in an English course per day, but to help implement more effective strategies as mentioned above, the panel established by Biancarosa & Snow (2006) found that students need two to four hours of “literacy-connected learning daily” (p. 20), which means principals should arrange for extended literacy time through literacy instruction in other content area classes. Additionally, long term and ongoing professional development is needed for teachers to efficiently and appropriately integrate strategies during extended literacy time (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). Professional development can be structured through interdisciplinary teams of teachers who use ongoing summative assessments of students and programs to continually improve content-literacy instruction (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006).

To implement the instructional and infrastructural elements outlined above, the last two elements Biancarosa and Snow (2006) include in their analysis is the implementation of strong leadership from the building principal and the integration of a comprehensive and coordinated literacy program. Instructional leadership from the principal is illustrated through his or her commitment to learning how adolescents learn to read and write and attending professional development sessions organized primarily for teachers (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). Also, the building principal’s commitment should be seen in his or her effort to align schedules so that interdisciplinary teams of teachers can meet on a regular basis “to coordinate their instruction to

reinforce important strategies and concepts” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 22) and support one another.

Biancarosa and Snow (2006) recognize that there are factors that limit (eg. Funding, staff, contracts, etc.) the ability of schools to implement all fifteen elements; furthermore, they have not concluded what the optimal mix of elements would be to improve adolescent literacy. However, they stress that “without professional development, ongoing formative assessment of students and ongoing summative assessment of students and programs as the foundation of any…program, we cannot hope to effect major change in adolescent literacy achievement, no matter what instructional innovations are introduced” (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006, p. 29). Based on individual student and school needs, school leaders should determine the combination of elements they implement in their literacy program.

Kamil et al. (2008) produced a practice guide of recommendations to improve adolescent literacy for the Institute of Education Sciences. The panel recommended five elements of an effective program and research to support the implementation of each element:

1. Provide explicit vocabulary instruction.

2. Provide direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction.

3. Provide opportunities for extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation. 4. Increase student motivation and engagement in literacy learning.

5. Make available intensive and individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by trained specialists. (Kamil et al., 2008, p. 7)

The researchers recognize that the list is not exhaustive, but they support their recommendations based on the fact that each are reinforced with substantial research. Furthermore, Kamil et al. (2008) explain that they do not recommend “teaching students about the discourse patterns of

specific subjects that adolescents study” because there is not enough research to formally support it (p. 8), but that does not mean it is an ineffective element of a reading program. Similar to Binacarosa and Snow’s report, Kamil et al. (2008) stress the importance of professional development in reading for content area teachers. Although Kamil et. al (2008) do not recommend content-specific strategy instruction in their list of recommendations, they posit that professional development should focus on the skills needed for students to successfully read content-area texts.

Finally, Marchand-Martella, Martella, Modderman, Petersen, and Pan (2013) organized recommendations for adolescent literacy instruction into five areas based on the synthesis of research reviews and meta-analyses. The five areas include: word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation (Marchand-Martella, Martella, Modderman, Petersen, & Pan, 2013). The researchers advocate for explicit instruction in the key areas listed above, and place the responsibility of the implementation of reading instruction on the educators working with the students in content areas (Marchand-Martella et al., 2013). Furthermore, the researchers reference Biancarosa and Snow’s (2006) list of the 15 essential elements of effective literacy programs and couples it with the five areas they list to improve student achievement (Marchand- Martella et al., 2013).