When students are in elementary school, a teacher who has expertise in teaching the fundamentals of reading instructs them. At the middle and high school level that stops - and the timing could not be worse. The literacy demands increase exponentially, yet typically schools do not teach adolescents how to successfully read the increasingly difficult materials they encounter throughout their day. As the rigor increases in their classes, student coping skills become less effective. Consequently, the achievement gap becomes wider and more difficult to close during the adolescent years. When it comes time to prescribe an intervention, middle and high school teachers are hitting a wall. Decoding and comprehension materials are often presented at an elementary level. The students feel bad enough that they struggle with reading; assigned 'baby work' increases the stigma. This book addresses the need for 6-12 teachers to have appropriate literacy intervention materials to use with struggling adolescent readers. This book will also help teachers learn how to support any adolescent reader--struggling or not--when they encounter challenging text. The book features two strands: decoding and comprehension. Each strand contains lessons, materials, a difficulty dial, tips for implementation and student samples.
About the Author: Lisa Hollihan Allen, MSE is a teacher, literacy coach and author. Her education career began as a middle school ELA and literature teacher. She currently is a K-12 reading specialist for the West De Pere School District in Wisconsin where she works with students 6-12 as a literacy interventionist. She serves as an adjunct instructor at St. Norbert College where she teaches the course Language Analysis and Applied Linguistics. Her role in education expanded when she worked as a literacy leader and literacy team facilitator for Wisconsin CESA 7 (Cooperative Educational Service Agency) extending educational opportunities to all corners of the state and across the nation. Lisa was a state finalist for the Kohl Teacher Fellowship. Katherine McKnight, Ph.D. currently serves as a Distinguished Professor of Research at National Louis University. She travels worldwide as a professional development consultant and is a speaker in the fields of elementary & adolescent literacy, inclusive classrooms, state standards, interdisciplinary literacy, and integrating technology in the 21st century classroom. She is completely committed to the development, sharing, and promotion of strategies that develop student literacy. That's why she spends many days each year in classrooms, working with teachers to help students grow into productive, creative adults. Because Katie's work takes her into all kinds of schools (public, private, parochial; rural, urban, and suburban), she's able to complement her vast expertise with relevant classroom experience. Dr. McKnight regularly publishes in professional journals and is the author of many award-winning, professional books. To learn more about her check out: www.katherinemcknight.com or follow her on twitter: @LiteracyWorld.