The precious years between elementary and high school are fundamental to student development and academic achievement. To help maximize your middle-level students’ potential, the International Literacy Association (ILA) has made a new cross-journal virtual issue on middle-level education free through July 31.
This publication provides resources and guides for working with middle-level students. MiddleLevel Education features 12 articles from ILA’s three journals The Reading Teacher (RT), Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (JAAL), and Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ)thatprovide insight to encourage and promote middle-level students’ academic achievement.
From RT
Articles from RT highlight methods that can aid reading comprehension and content literacy in middle-level students. In their article “Reading Thematically Related Texts to Develop Knowledge and Comprehension,” Lynn Gelzheiser, Laura Hallgren-Flynn, Margaret Connors, and Donna Scanlon illustrate how to develop content themes that will ultimately allow students to develop greater genre knowledge. Peter Dewitz and Michael F. Graves also focus on expanding students’ knowledge through transfer and other academic applications in their article “Teaching for Transfer in the Common Core Era.”
In her RT article “Level Up With Multimodal Composition in Social Studies,” Bridget Dalton discusses how teachers can lead students through multimodal composition.
From JAAL
JAAL articles provide guidance for instructing middle-level learners on literacy and language topics.
Dianna Townsend’s “Who’s Using the Language? Supporting Middle School Students With Content Area Academic Language” explores how educators can integrate academic language support into content area lessons. The dynamic of writing in content area classrooms is discussed in “Learning to Write in Middle School?” by Joshua Fahey Lawrence, Emily Phillips Galloway, Soobin Yim, and Alex Lin.
In “Putting Two and Two Together,” Mark B. Pacheco and Amanda P. Goodwin offer strategies and recommendations to support students in determining word meanings. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey discussing using close reading intervention as a tool for advancing student achievement in “Close Reading as an Intervention for Struggling Middle School Readers.”
The Literacy Lenses column “Independent Reading” by Katy Benning features essays highlighting perspectives on teaching with literacies to stimulate reader reflection.
From RRQ
Engaging struggling readers and unleashing their potential is discussed in articles from RRQ.Greg Roberts, Sharon Vaughn, Jack Fletcher, Karla Stuebing, and Amy Barth study the effects of multiyear, response-based tiered intervention for struggling readers in grades 6 through 8 in their article “Effects of a Response-Based, Tiered Framework for Intervening With Struggling Readers in Middle School.” More classroom techniques are discussed in John T. Guthrie and Susan Lutz Klauda’s article “Effects of Classroom Practices on Reading Comprehension, Engagement, and Motivations for Adolescents.”
Bridging the achievement gap based on income inequality is discussed in “The New Literacies of Online Research and Comprehension” by Donald J. Leu, Elena Forzani, Chris Rhoads, Cheryl Maykel, Clint Kennedy, and Nicole Timbrell.
“Effects of Educational Technology Applications on Reading Outcomes for Struggling Readers” by Alan C.K. Cheung and Robert E. Slavin examines how popular programs including Leapfrog and Destination Reading affect the progress of struggling readers and why.
Madelaine Levey is a communications intern with ILA.