Our schools are best prepared to teach children to read in the primary grades. Yet recent studies show that about 30 percent of U.S. students leave the primary grades without basic competence in reading (Anderson 1985; NAEP 1984, 1992). Even in high-achieving school districts, the proportion of older students with poor reading skills is substantial—rarely less than 20 percent. In addition, immigration brings many students who cannot read effectively in English.
In the middle and high school years, poor competence in reading causes acute academic and social problems, and high school faculties are usually at a loss to remedy the problem. Upper-grade, middle school, and high school teachers have not been well prepared to teach beginning readers or students who have not developed basic vocabulary and comprehension skills. The national investment in special education and the teaching of English as a second language, a combination that sometimes represents 30 percent of our school budgets, has not solved the problem.
We need to create programs for adolescents that will teach them to read effectively enough to profit from secondary education and instill habits of regular independent reading. We report here a straightforward approach to the problem through two studies conducted at a San Diego high school.
Reading Achievement at Morse
San Diego's Morse High School enrolls 2,500 students in grades 9-12. Forty percent of the students are Filipino, 30 percent are African American, 20 percent are Hispanic, and 10 percent are Laotian, Vietnamese, Thai, Guamanian, Pacific Islanders, and other Asian nationalities. Both middle and junior high schools contribute students to the Morse population.
In the fall of 1996, 59 percent of the 351 entering 9th graders were reading below the 50th percentile, as measured by the Abbreviated Stanford Achievement Test (ASAT). Of the 637 entering 10th graders, 57 percent were reading below this percentile. In grades 11 and 12, despite a sharp drop in enrollment for the two grades (488 and 438), students scoring at or above the 50th percentile on the ASAT were 44 percent and 45 percent, respectively. Thus, although many students drop out after 10th grade, many of the students who remain in and even complete high school continue to experience difficulties in reading.
The parent population of Morse is supportive of education; they particularly want their children to obtain a high school diploma. Many families celebrate high school graduation with family gatherings that rival weddings and funerals. For many families, a high school graduate is a first. Visions of high achievement, however, are less common.
For several years, Morse staff members have been aware of the reading deficits of their entering freshmen and sophomores. They have administered Gates reading tests to all entering freshmen and have recommended various remedial measures to students two or more years below grade level in reading.
Despite the faculty's heightened awareness of the problem and special attention from the English department as well as Excel (a tutoring program) and WICAT (a computer-assisted instruction program), the faculty knew that they were not meeting the needs of many students for reading instruction. Concerted efforts with 9th graders since 1991 resulted in small gains over the past six years, increasing by 8 percent the 9th graders scoring at or above the 50th percentile in reading comprehension. Unfortunately, during the same period, scores for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders remained stable or even declined.
In the spring and summer of 1996, a group of teachers involved in this remedial effort met to plan a systematic approach to the problem. We worked closely with the teachers to help them design a course intended for students reading two or more years below 9th grade level.
Planning a Reading Curriculum
- A reading course is built into the secondary curriculum. The course has a much larger scope than usual study skills courses. (See Barry 1997 for a summary of current offerings.) The Morse team constructed a reading course much like an elementary language arts curriculum, but one that met the needs of secondary students (see Slavin 1996). Students take the course in lieu of electives.
- The reading teachers participate in staff development to learn strategies to engage beginning and low-achieving readers.
- Teachers use curriculum and instructional strategies with a high probability of success for older beginning readers.
The key curriculum development question is, "What are the components that give students the best possible chance to learn to read?" We know from the research on reading—which outruns most contemporary practice—that the most promising approaches are multidimensional (Dole et al. 1991, Fielding and Pearson 1994). They do not depend on single aspects of the reading process, such as decoding. Also, effective reading instruction involves students in active inquiry; students develop metacognitive skills that facilitate independence in reading (Menke and Pressley 1994).
A Multidimensional High School Reading Course
- Building vocabulary through natural language. Through dictation to teachers, students watch as their own words are written down and then read back to them.
- Building vocabulary through reading. To help students develop substantial sight vocabulary, teachers make lists of words from age-appropriate selections they read aloud to the class, and students add the words to their boxes of index cards. Teachers help students learn how to acquire such words in narrative and expository prose.
- Reading in school and at home. Teachers help students choose from the rich variety of children's literature—even if at first they may only be able to read picture-story books. Teachers and parents work together to help encourage reading at home and to select books at the proper developmental level.
- Listening to teachers read. When teachers read aloud to students, they also talk through ways they find meaning and word comprehension, modeling the process for their students.
- Phonetic and structural analysis. Through inductive analysis, students examine the words they have collected and develop phonetic and structural principles as well as word families. Teachers regularly give diagnostic tests to help students assess what they have mastered.
- Instruction in comprehension. Teachers directly teach students how to use the dictionary and thesaurus and provide practice in using strategies for finding meaning of words in the context of sentences.
Throughout these activities, students engage in cooperative learning as a way to increase learning and boost morale and self-esteem. Teachers use inductive models of teaching (Joyce et al. 1996), as well as direct instruction and regular assessment.
The faculty's goal is to ensure that students develop high levels of fluency in reading (much of which depends on high levels of reading practice). Cooperative strategies focus initially on lower-order comprehension (the factual recall of what is read). With increasing fluency, students complete higher-order comprehension tasks (identification of main ideas and central themes, inference and interpretation) (see Brown et al. 1981, Stevens et al. 1991).
We notified the parents of 300 entering 9th and 10th grade students that the course would be required for their students. The school offered nine sections of the reading course in the fall of 1996.
Results of the First Study
- What gains were made on the ASAT reading battery (vocabulary and comprehension subtests)?
- How many new sight vocabulary words did the students master?
- How many books did the students read?
The mean pretest score on the ASAT, in grade-level equivalent terms, was 5.34 (standard deviation, S.D. = .90). At the end of the first semester, the ASAT mean post-test score was 6.39 (S.D. = 1.58). The students had gained just over one grade level in reading achievement. The difference is significant at the p > .0001 level (t-test for dependent samples).
Mean growth for these students in past years was about 0.50 in grade-equivalent terms, or about 0.25 per semester. In this one semester, the gain was somewhat over twice that, or about four times what would be expected if there had been no intervention.
Students learned an average of 101 new vocabulary words during the first semester and read an average of 5.86 books. The notion of recreational reading was foreign to most of these students, many of whom noted in course evaluations that they did not enjoy reading. Students expressed considerable enthusiasm, however, for specific course elements, especially the opportunity to select their own reading material and the mastery of new vocabulary.
Results of the Second Study
In the second semester, the faculty conducted the course much as in the first semester, with 122 students enrolled—32 from the first semester and 90 new enrollees. We divided the evaluation into two parts for each set of students. In addition, we conducted small studies of students in special education and English-as-a-second-language programs.
- The new students (n = 90). The mean pretest scores on the Gates for second-semester students was 5.65 grade-level equivalent (S.D. = 2.21 and a range of 1.9 to 11.9). At the end of the second semester, the mean Gates post-test score was 6.97 (S.D. = 2.20 and a range of 2.2 to 11.4). The mean gain of 1.32 years for the second-semester students was significant at the p > .00001 level (t-test for dependent samples). Thus, the mean gain in this semester was about five times the mean gain these students had made during comparable periods of time in school. Students averaged 137 new vocabulary words and read an average of 5.95 books during the semester.
- Gender and ethnicity. Gains posted by the various ethnic groups at the end of the first study suggested that the treatment had worked somewhat less effectively for African American students, although all ethnic groups showed greater gains in reading than would normally be predicted, given their learning histories. In the second semester, however, the African American students gained somewhat more than did the other students. Although this may have been a chance occurrence, we continue to study the effects of the program on all ethnic groups.
Success for Students
The Morse High School reading course appears to benefit students who enter high school two or more years below grade level. We have found that intensive reading instruction can greatly accelerate the skill levels of such students.
Clearly, we must encourage the students to read much more than they are currently reading. Many of the participating students had not read a book outside of school in years and reported little in the way of a reading habit. (On the other hand, many students were thrilled with the amount of reading they had done during the course.) National studies of reading competence have found that extensive reading outside of school is a high correlate of both vocabulary development and reading comprehension. We are currently making plans for rewards and incentives for greater out-of-school reading, as well as renewing our efforts to involve parents in encouraging young people to read at home.
Perhaps the most important implication of the effort is the clear evidence that these secondary students can learn to read. They can overcome their poor learning histories and the phobias they have developed about reading. The research base is sufficient to create course designs that can have immediate and substantial effects. If we wish, we can create programs in the upper grades of elementary schools and in secondary schools that will enhance the success of these previously unreached students.
