Collaboration with staff is essential for the success of any literacy program.

Leadership for Literacy:
High School Principals and the Reading Challenge

Sit down with a group of high school principals and within a few minutes a surprising topic is likely to emerge: reading. Actually, the discussion will probably turn to the problem of adolescent illiteracy and what high schools can do about it. What is surprising about this discussion isn’t just that it is being held by high school principals (reading having long been the exclusive responsibility of the elementary school) but that it points to a problem of enormous scale that affects virtually every high school in the nation. Among some groups, adolescent illiteracy is estimated to be as high as 50%. Even among more heterogenous school populations, it is not unusual to find 15-20% of a high school student body reading significantly below their grade level. What has produced this alarming situation? And, more importantly, what can high school leaders do to change it?

Not so long ago, high school teachers and principals seldom had to deal with issues of illiteracy among their students. Many kids who experienced reading difficulties "adjusted" to their disability by staying away from school until they reached drop-out age, then left the high school for good. Others languished in remedial programs or "tracks," taking a series of courses that failed to improve their reading or enhance their chance for success in the real world. Some of the lucky ones wound up in vocational programs where they were able to learn skills through modeling and apprenticeships, mastering only as much reading as was necessary for their job requirements. Illiteracy was a hidden problem that provoked no sense of urgency.

By the mid-1980s, however, everything had changed. Federal, state and local authorities called for higher graduation standards; tracking by ability became less prevalent, so non-readers began to appear in regular classrooms; traditional apprentice-based vocational programs were curtailed in favor of high-tech alternatives; and high-stakes tests that focused on reading and writing came to dominate the educational accountability systems in most states. Illiteracy among junior and senior high school students was documented in studies such as High School and Beyond, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the National Educational Long Range Study (1988), and a score of others. Business leaders decried the lack of reading and writing skills among high school graduates, and higher education institutions found themselves spending millions of dollars to provide remediation for poorly prepared students.

Suddenly, literacy became the centerpiece of high school reform efforts. New programs, materials, and scheduling options appeared, and new state assessments demanded ever higher levels of student performance and school accountability. Principals, most of whom did not come from reading backgrounds, found themselves trying to provide instructional leadership in a field that often seemed complicated, confusing and contradictory.

Fortunately, there is an emerging body of information and research that provides guidance for principals who plan to lead significant literacy initiatives in their schools. In order to provide this leadership, however, it is important to understand the unique nature of the illiteracy problem among adolescent learners.

Teen Illiteracy

Illiteracy among adolescent learners is complicated by a number of factors that are less likely to affect younger or older students. In her excellent article in Principal Leadership, "Eliminating a ‘Yes…But’ Curriculum," Janet Allen (October, 2001) identifies some of the major impediments that adolescent non-readers must overcome.

Lack of interest and motivation. Numbed by a curriculum that many students see as completely irrelevant to their lives, and conditioned to failure by years of poor reading performance, many students just give up on trying to learn.

Insufficient and inappropriate resources. When students have never developed basic reading skill or a love of books, layering a traditional literature-based curriculum on top of a weak foundation invites abject hatred of the "great works" that make up so much of the reading in high schools. Certainly, classics should receive some serious study, but many students have never developed the fundamental skills necessary to cope with these challenging texts.

Insufficient reading experience and background knowledge. Because of family background, resources, time, or a thousand other variables, some students just don’t have enough hours of reading history or other learning experiences to have developed the conceptual frameworks and vocabulary needed for fluency and enjoyment. Sometimes, it’s up to the school to provide some "early literacy" experiences, even at this late date, through field trips, books on tape, book clubs, extended day programs, and independent reading programs.

Inability to break text codes and lack of independent reading strategies. Students who have received poor reading instruction, have few competent reader models at home, and have limited experiences with reading themselves are almost guaranteed to lack the independent reading strategies needed to comprehend new and unfamiliar material.

Complicating Factors

By the time they reach high school, many students have learned numerous strategies for coping with their reading disabilities. Aggressive or disruptive behavior is sometimes used to divert attention from learning problems that would invite ridicule or criticism. Often, these aggressive students are "left alone" by teachers who are grateful that the student is not disrupting their classroom. Over time, unspoken "treaties" evolve between the teacher and the student: "You leave me alone, and I won’t both you either." Such an arrangement makes it easy for a student’s disability to be concealed beneath apathy and non-participation.

Other students have simply inoculated themselves against school failure by taking on other roles (the class clown), seeking esteem through other avenues (gang membership, promiscuity, child-bearing), numbing themselves with drugs and alcohol, or simply withdrawing, either psychologically or physically, from the school.

Curriculum issues complicate matters even further. High school teachers are challenged to teach an ever-expanding, standards-based curriculum with little time available to provide remedial instruction for poor readers. The pressure of high stakes testing programs, college admission, and other academic demands leave little room for reading in an already jammed curriculum.

Some teachers also believe "it’s not my job" to teach reading -- that it should have been done in the elementary or middle school. Such a stance makes it very unlikely that any instructional modifications will be made for reading disabled students.

High School Literacy Programs

Despite these challenges, high school literacy programs have flourished in the past few years. Although they represent almost infinite variety, they tend to share several noteworthy characteristics.

A Quest for Relevance. Sound programs work hard to assure a measure of relevance for the students. In some cases, the reading program is tied to some highly motivating experience, such as job preparation, an internship, a special student interest or some other real-world activity. In these cases, the student learns the importance of reading in the context of some other activity that he values very highly – such as work.

Other programs seek to address specific concerns or issues faced by the adolescent students enrolled in them, such as sexuality and health, drug and alcohol abuse, or planning for work and a career. Still others build relevance by linking instruction to issues of ethnicity and gender, selecting, for example, authors who write about the African American or the Latino experience in the U.S.

Social Involvement. Adolescents are, first and foremost, social creatures, so effective literacy programs capitalize on this important motivational force. Involving students in discussions of what they have read or using reading groups focused on specific, high-interest topics provide significant motivation for students to grapple with reading material in order to participate with their class peers.

Many programs use academic mentors or coaches who actually work one-on-one with disabled readers to share books, model and coach reading strategies, and help the students develop sufficient background knowledge so that they can understand new reading material. Sometimes these mentors are more able peers; sometimes they are teachers or other adult volunteers.

Direct Instruction in Strategies Recognizing that reading is a very complex process, successful programs give explicit attention to strategies used by effective readers. These include not only basic reading skills, but more sophisticated metacognitive strategies and study approaches.

In addition to the generic reading strategies employed by good readers, subject area teachers, as a matter of routine, teach the reading strategies necessary for understanding the special nuances of their content fields. Not only does this improve overall reading performance for disabled readers, it also helps promote achievement for all students regardless of their general reading ability

A Culture of Reading Creating a strong culture of reading in the school intensifies the effects of all of the specific program features noted above. Creating such a culture means that reading permeates the school day – from "book talks" on the morning announcements to authors’ festivals, book fairs, student publications, sustained silent reading times, library programs, and a dozen other strategies found in the resources provided at the end of this article.

The single most important aspect of a reading culture is that reading is the topic of conversation in the school. Data on student reading performance, information about reading programs, and useful reading strategies are shared in faculty or team meetings. Staff development focuses on reading instruction across the content areas, and teachers share strategies with one another and ask for assistance in teaching important reading skills. Parents are informed about how to promote reading at home, and local libraries are involved with the school in promoting membership and providing access to books.

The Role of the Principal.

As with any school-wide initiative, leadership for literacy requires careful planning, thoughtful monitoring, and a lot of collaboration with faculty and families. Based on the research literature in the field, a number of leadership behaviors have been linked to successful literacy programs at the high school. (Adapted from The Knowledge Loom, Northeast Regional Educational Laboratory, Brown University.)

1. Establish clear goals for the literacy program. The program’s goals must deal specifically with the strategies necessary to negotiate the literacy demands of (1) course work, (2) higher education, (3) the world of work, and (4) lifelong learning through reading and writing.

2. Communicate priorities and provide adequate resources. Communicate the program’s priorities through the allocation of time, money, space, and materials as well as through printed and spoken messages. Messages about the importance of literacy need to come from administrators, teachers, curriculum specialists, mentors, coaches, the Superintendent, and anyone else who communicates school goals. It cannot be subordinated to any other goal.

3. Integrate literacy with the larger school program. In addition to direct instruction in literacy, assure that content literacy instruction occurs in every class, service projects focus on literacy (e.g., students tutor younger children), time is allocated for literacy activities (book fairs, sustained silent reading), literacy is imbedded in career education and school-to-work activities, and mentorship and advisory programs provide support for poor readers.

4. Change organizational structures to support literacy instruction. Consider using differential time allocations and staff assignments to promote literacy, including double periods devoted to reading or a "total immersion" literacy program for severely disabled readers. Appoint a literacy task force to plan school-wide initiatives.

5. Provide ongoing professional development for teachers and other staff. Focus professional development on literacy instruction and consult with teachers for creative ways to assure that they have adequate time to learn new strategies, develop curriculum, meet collaboratively to improve practice, support and mentor one another, stay current on research, conduct action research, and review program effects and student success. Ask teachers to share success stories at faculty meetings or do short demonstrations of successful reading instruction.

6. Review and evaluate the literacy program. Monitor the literacy program in the school in order to (1) examine learning outcomes and results, (2) review the effectiveness of program components, and 3) seek participant feedback.

Beyond these general leadership responsibilities, the professional literature is full of very specific, practical recommendations for how to launch and sustain a literacy initiative in your own high school. Just as important are actual stories from real schools about the opportunities, achievements, pitfalls and pratfalls in their own programs. There is much that we can learn from each other, and these resources are among the best available.

Leadership for literacy is much like leadership for anything else – establishing a clear vision, setting ambitious goals, mustering the necessary resources, energizing the people who take leadership in the innovation, nurturing their successes and helping them overcome their failures. Unlike many innovations, though, a school-wide literacy initiative is clearly essential to assure students of a successful future. Its benefits are so obvious that it usually doesn’t take a lot of cajoling to get people on board. That means your precious time and energy can be spent on the important work of building programs to help kids learn to read.

Best Resources for Leaders

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These resources have been selected to provide the most useful materials on the problems of adolescent literacy, the best practices for working with poor readers at the secondary level, and the leadership actions required for literacy programs to be successful in the high school setting.

High School Literacy.
http://www.lab.brown.edu/voices/3qtr2001/adlit.shtml
From Brown University, this is one teacher’s story about helping her low-achieving 9th and 10th graders learn to read efficiently and effectively. Contains links to other promising programs, strategies and practices.

Adolescent Literacy in the Spotlight.
http://www.knowledgeloom.org/adlit/index.shtml
Provided by the Knowledge Loom at Brown University, this engaging, interactive exploration of programs, methods and leadership strategies is based on research from the Northeast Regional Educational Lab. This is a "must visit" site for anyone serious about successful school literacy programs.

Building Reading Proficiency at the Secondary Level: A Guide to Resources.
http://www.sedl.org/pubs/reading16/welcome.html
The Southwest Regional Educational Lab provides a superb guide that highlights both current theoretical perspectives and research findings on building reading proficiency at the secondary level and their implications for classroom instruction and school programming.

Motivating Reluctant Adolescent Readers
http://www.nwrel.org/learns/tutor/win2000/index.html
From the Northwest Educational Lab, this comprehensive guide offers excellent advice to principals, teachers and districts about overcoming adolescent disinterest and boredom.

Reading Skills Development of Hispanic Students in American Public Schools: Some Specific Strategies. ERIC Digest. http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed286705.html
This brief article outlines specific strategies for helping Hispanic students learn to read. It also contains references to other, important works on the same topic.

Principal’s Reading Kit
http://www.illinoisreads.com/htmls/kit_principal.html
From the Illinois State Board of Education, this online "kit" helps principals understand the reading process and how to recognize and support it.

Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: 5 Simple-to-Follow Strategies for Principals
http://www.elainemcewan.com/rra_middle_high.htm
This practical and engaging book by Elaine McEwan provides concrete suggestions for principals who wish to focus their school’s attention on literacy and reading.

Prepared by J. Howard Johnston