What Really Matters for Middle School Readers: From Research to Practice

by Richard L. Allington

The latest from well-known author and literacy expert Richard Allington is intended as the first step in preparing future teachers to provide early adolescents with high-quality literacy instruction. What Really Matters for Middle School From Research to Practice looks at the areas that struggling adolescents find most difficult―meaning, vocabulary, (especially for academic words), and inferential comprehension―and focuses on ways to foster accelerated growth. Dr. Allington stresses that through expanding the volume of high-success reading that students experience each day, as well as through the wide variety of additional classroom strategies and methodologies included in the text, middle school students can achieve a working literacy proficiency.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2014

Reviews

[Stevi Quate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish every middle and high school teacher would read this. Allington shows why it's so important that students read books of their choice a good share of the time and read something they can actually read daily. One of his scary research findings is that exemplary middle and high school teachers are harder to find than their counterparts in elementary school. Because instruction tends to be whole class/single text, struggling readers often don't receive the practice they need to grow.