University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Reading instruction and educational opportunity at the middle school level

Garcia, Georgia Earnest; Stephens, Diane L.; Koenke, Karl R.; Harris, Violet J.; Pearson, P. David; Jimenez, Robert T.; Janish, Carol

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/31273

Description

Title
Reading instruction and educational opportunity at the middle school level
Author(s)
  • Garcia, Georgia Earnest
  • Stephens, Diane L.
  • Koenke, Karl R.
  • Harris, Violet J.
  • Pearson, P. David
  • Jimenez, Robert T.
  • Janish, Carol
Issue Date
1995-11
Keyword(s)
  • instructional reading practices
  • 7th grade
  • African-American
  • literacy curriculum
Abstract
This study used qualitative methods, as part of a 2-year collaborative university/middle school effort, to understand the instructional reading practices in effect at the seventh-grade level and to investigate whether any of the practices might be related to the differential reading performance of the school's African-American students. Few of the teachers felt comfortable teaching reading at the middle-school level. They tended to emphasize whole-class instruction, oral reading, and the coverage of required texts, practices not oriented toward helping low readers improve their reading. The low reading performance of the African-American students was affected by the school's use of homogeneous grouping, overrepresentation of African Americans in the low classes, and by the type of reading instruction offered in these classes. If middle-school students are to improve their literacy capabilities, and if past inequities are to be overturned, then middle school experts and faculty, along with literacy experts, need to work together to develop a literacy curriculum.
Publisher
Champaign, Ill. : University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading.
Series/Report Name or Number
Center for the Study of Reading Technical Report ; no. 622
Type of Resource
text
Language
eng
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31273
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1995 Board of Trustees University of Illinois

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Technical Reports - Center for the Study of Reading PRIMARY