Adolescent Literacy: Strategies for Content Comprehension in Inclusive Classrooms

For adolescents with reading disabilities, struggles with comprehension are a major obstacle to mastering academic content areas. Help resolve comprehension difficulties with this practical text, developed for use with students in Grades 6–12 with and without disabilities.

An ideal supplementary text for preservice special and general educators—and a great resource for inservice teachers looking for new comprehension strategies—this book is the key to understanding what’s behind comprehension struggles and which strategies make a real difference for adolescent readers. Teachers will discover how to improve students’ reading comprehension across content areas with specific, evidence-based strategies such as

• mnemonics that help students remember and retrieve important information
• graphic organizers that highlight key information and clarify abstract concepts
• peer-mediated strategies that provide more opportunities for direct instruction and repeated practice
• motivational and self-efficacy strategies that encourage deep, focused, and engaged reading
• The Embedded Story Structure Routine, which teaches self-questioning, story structure analysis, and summary writing
• Collaborative Strategic Reading in student-led cooperative learning groups
• technology-based applications such as adapted digital texts, open-source textbooks, educational software, and virtual field trips
• multicomponent interventions such as reciprocal teaching and the SQ3R approach

To help teachers implement these highly effective comprehension strategies across a wide range of content areas, they’ll get complete overviews of each strategy and how-to guidance based on recommended practice. They’ll also get charts, graphic organizers, mnemonic strategies, and sample lesson plans they can use in their own classrooms.

With the proven, research-based strategies in this textbook, educators will be fully prepared to improve adolescents’ comprehension skills and ensure that all students are confident, motivated readers.

Ana Taboada Barber, Ph.D., Associate Professor, George Mason University, 4400 University Boulevard, Fairfax, VA 22030

Dr. Taboada Barber's research focuses on the examination of classroom contexts that support reading engagement for monolingual and second language learners. She is specifically interested in the psychology of literacy from a cognitive and motivational perspective. In the past, she worked on the development of the modeling of reading engagement as it applies to all learners (e.g., native-speakers of English and second language learners) in the late elementary grades. She is currently working on the development of frameworks within the engagement model as they apply to second language learners. Her research has been published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Experimental Education, Instructional Science, Journal of Educational Research, and Lectura y Vida: Latin American Journal of the International Reading Association. She obtained her bachelor's degree in school psychology in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a master's degree in educational psychology at Temple University, and her doctoral degree from the University of Maryland. She was also a classroom teacher in bilingual schools in Buenos Aires before coming to the United States as a Fulbright scholar.

Richard T. Boon, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Special Education at The University of Georgia. His research interests include cognitive strategy instruction, inclusion, and technology-based applications for students with mild to moderate disabilities. He has written more than 50 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. In addition, he has made more than 100 presentations at local, state, regional, national, and international conferences. In recognition of his accomplishments in research and teaching, Dr. Boon has received the Outstanding Teaching Award and was selected as a recipient of the Lilly Teaching Fellowship Award for 2006–2008, from the College of Education, both recognizing excellence in teaching and research, and more recently, was the recipient of the Sarah H. Moss Fellowship for 2008–2009 to serve as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto.

Margaret E. King-Sears, Ph.D., is a professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Special Education. She also coordinates the Mild to Moderate Disabilities Program and the Inclusion Program at Johns Hopkins. She has taught students with mild to moderate disabilities in elementary and secondary grades in Florida, Germany, and Japan. Dr. King-Sears's research interests are in self-management, inclusion, and curriculum-based assessment. She is co-author with Stephanie Carpenter of Teaching Self-Management to Elementary Students with Developmental Disabilities (American Association on Mental Retardation, 1997), co-author with Dianne Bradley and Diane Tessier-Switlick of Teaching Students in Inclusive Settings (Allyn & Bacon, 1997), and author of Curriculum-Based Assessment in Special Education (Singular Publishing, 1994).

Vicky G. Spencer, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Division of Special Education and disability Research at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She also coordinates the Applied Behavior Analysis and the Autism certificate programs. Her research interests include cognitive strategy instruction, international issues in special education, inclusion, and autism. She has authored or edited numerous research articles and published four books that address differentiated instruction and teaching in the inclusive classroom. Dr. Spencer is a Fulbright scholar and works internati