We begin this article by asking you to read the following text:
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What strategies did you use to make sense of your reading of this text, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? What caused you to slow down or reread? Under what circumstances might a teacher introduce this document to Patek Philippe Replica(http://www.imitatewatch.com/GoodsBrand/Replica-Patek-Philippe-Watches-55.html) students—even those thought to be struggling with reading? What challenges might young people representing an array of reading abilities encounter as they read? How could a teacher help those young people to address any challenges and weigh the text's possible meanings? What knowledge and strategies might young people extrapolate from this experience to other reading?
The purpose of our commentary is to invite you to confront with us the travesty that typically passes for literacy instruction for older youth in the United States who struggle with reading. In too many U.S. schools, these young people face an impoverished curriculum, receiving literacy instruction that is ill suited to their needs, or worse, receiving no literacy instruction at all. We invite you to consider, in contrast, teaching that helps young people to read a wide range of texts more effectively, including the text with which we began this article. As important, we ask you to reimaging instruction that acknowledges such young people and that helps them to acknowledge themselves, as thriving, literate, intelligent human beings with important contributions to make—including interpreting the First Amendment. In this article we explain why we believe dramatic change is essential, we introduce you to one young man who struggles with reading but who has begun to thrive, and we consider the implications of his growing success for future policy, research, and classroom practice.
The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that there were 3.9 million eighth graders in the United States in 2007, the latest year of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Twenty-six percent of eighth graders who took the 2007 NAEP did not attain basic levels of literacy, and only 31% reached proficiency—meaning that roughly 1 million eighth graders were stalled at basic literacy levels and another 1.7 million were not proficient. Long-observed achievement gaps by race, class, and gender persisted in this NAEP, with youth of color, youth from lower socioeconomic circumstances, and males performing least well (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007; U.S. Census Bureau, 2007).
These appalling numbers likely underestimate the problem. NAEP reports considerable variability in use of testing accommodations for students with disabilities and Tag Heuer Carrera Replica(http://www.luv-replica.com/GoodsSeries/Tag-Heuer-Carrera-154.html) English-language learners, which means that it does not accurately represent these populations— even though they are at great risk of not developing needed literacy (McGill-Franzen & Allington, 2006; NAEP, 2008). Also, the NAEP tests print literacy only, limiting its utility in estimating young people's skills with the more complex, multilayered digital literacies demanded for success in the 21st century (Coiro & Dobler, 2007).
The woeful condition of this aspect of U.S. adolescent literacy is, thus, an enormous human rights issue. Our youth's life choices and our nation's future participation in the global economy are disrupted in significant ways when such large numbers of young people have literacy difficulties (Friedman, 2005).
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