A Relational Model of Adolescent Literacy Instruction

Author(s):  
Donna E. Alvermann ◽  
Elizabeth Birr Moje
2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna E. Alvermann

This article, written for a general audience, focuses on the importance of keeping adolescents' interests and needs foremost in mind when designing literacy instruction at the middle and high school level. It is a slightly revised version of a position paper that the Board of Directors of the National Reading Conference (NRC) commissioned this past year to underscore the need to continue literacy instruction beyond the elementary grades. Posted originally to NRC's web page ( http://nrc.oakland.edu ), the paper argues that adolescent literacy instruction, if it is to be effective, must address issues of self-efficacy and student engagement with a variety of texts (e.g., textbooks, hypermedia texts, digital texts) in diverse settings. It must also attend to the literacy demands of subject area classes, to struggling readers, to issues of critical literacy, and to participatory instructional approaches that actively engage adolescents in their own learning.


2015 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Birr Moje

In this essay, Elizabeth Birr Moje argues that educators can make radical change in student learning and well-being if they reframe teachers' work with youth as less about meeting standards and more about teaching youth to navigate the multiple literacy contexts in which they live, learn, and work. To that end, Moje offers a take on disciplinary literacy instruction that puts the process of inquiry at its center. In contrast to a frame that ignores or removes value, purpose, affect, emotion, imagination, social interaction, and the learning and challenging of cultural conventions from the work of adolescent literacy teaching, she presents a teaching heuristic designed to capitalize on the social and cultural nature of disciplinary inquiry and support students in navigating multiple literacy contexts as part of the teaching of disciplinary literacy, characterized by what she terms the 4Es: engage, elicit/engineer, examine, and evaluate.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 1283-1300
Author(s):  
Xigrid T. Soto ◽  
Andres Crucet-Choi ◽  
Howard Goldstein

Purpose Preschoolers' phonological awareness (PA) and alphabet knowledge (AK) skills are two of the strongest predictors of future reading. Despite evidence that providing at-risk preschoolers with timely emergent literacy interventions can prevent academic difficulties, there is a scarcity of research focusing on Latinx preschoolers who are dual language learners. Despite evidence of benefits of providing Latinxs with Spanish emergent literacy instruction, few studies include preschoolers. This study examined the effects of a supplemental Spanish PA and AK intervention on the dual emergent literacy skills of at-risk Latinx preschoolers. Method A multiple probe design across four units of instruction evaluated the effects of a Spanish supplemental emergent literacy intervention that explicitly facilitated generalizations to English. Four Latinx preschoolers with limited emergent literacy skills in Spanish and English participated in this study. Bilingual researchers delivered scripted lessons targeting PA and AK skills in individual or small groups for 12–17 weeks. Results Children made large gains as each PA skill was introduced into intervention and generalized the PA skills they learned from Spanish to English. They also improved their English initial sound identification skills, a phonemic awareness task, when instruction was delivered in Spanish but with English words. Children made small to moderate gains in their Spanish letter naming and letter–sound correspondence skills and in generalizing this knowledge to English. Conclusion These findings provide preliminary evidence Latinx preschoolers who are dual language learners benefit from emergent literacy instruction that promotes their bilingual and biliterate development.


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