KEY TERMS

ADOLESCENT AND YOUNG ADULT LITERACY

Adolescent Literacy-This term includes the idea that adolescents already possess knowledge, skills and plans and want to participate in literacy practices suited to their own lives.  It further signals that adolescents have multiple literacies, expanded ideas about texts, their literacies shape their emerging sense of self, and they need school-based opportunities to explore multiple literacies.

NCLB-No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the 2001 federal legislation that focused national attention on improving the literacy skills of elementary school students.  It did not address the literacy needs of middle and high school students.

Reading-Reading is a complex, purposeful, social and cognitive process in which readers simultaneously use their knowledge of spoken and written language, their knowledge of the topic of the text, and their knowledge of their culture to construct meaning.  Reading is not a technical skill acquired once and for all in the primary grades, but rather a developmental process.  A reader's competence continues to grow through engagement with various types of texts and wide reading for various purposes over a lifetime.

Phonics-Phonics refers to a system of teaching reading that stresses symbol-sound relationships, showing how these can be used to decode words.  Research shows that the benefits of phonics instruction are strongest in the early grades, with diminished results for students in higher grades.

Successful Literacy Programs-Research shows that successful literacy programs for adolescents emphasize connections between students' lives, prior knowledge, and texts, and emphasize student conversations to make those connections.