8/5/2024

Mastering Adolescent Literacy: 3 Game-Changing Tips for Supporting Middle School Teachers

District administrators work regularly to improve literacy instruction at the early elementary level. Once students reach late elementary school (and into middle and high school), administrative oversight can often shift to new priorities. However, not all students are ready to read to learn. Many are still learning to read. Those students still require explicit literacy instruction to understand concepts and skills in the upper grades.

At the same time, many middle and high school teachers don’t feel prepared to teach reading skills to older students. They also know materials must be engaging and age-appropriate for older learners. Content that feels childish will alienate their struggling readers. 

However, if the needs of struggling readers aren’t met, it’s likely they won’t experience success in the secondary grades. Given the right resources, middle and high school teachers in all content areas have a unique opportunity to support and ensure the success of their students.

The good news is district leaders can incorporate literacy professional learning for secondary teachers without overwhelming already busy schedules. Here are three low-lift methods for providing valuable literacy training to your middle school teaching staff.

1. Cross-School Collaboration

Foster collaboration between elementary and secondary teachers across your district. This strategy allows you to harness the knowledge of your elementary literacy specialists, who can effectively educate secondary teachers about reading principles and how to integrate those skills into their content areas (as many elementary teachers already do in their classrooms).

Many elementary teachers are now receiving training in evidence-based instruction as states shift away from balanced literacy. They understand foundational literacy components like phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. By tapping into this knowledge base, secondary teachers can learn practical ways to support literacy development even if they don't teach an English or reading course.

Practical application: 

• Approach your elementary reading specialist(s) about conducting training for middle school content-area teachers in math, science, and social studies to help students decode complex, content-specific vocabulary words.

This cross-pollination allows elementary experts to share their literacy instructional methods in bite-sized, applicable ways with colleagues in other buildings and grade bands. It's an efficient way to upskill the entire teaching staff without hiring costly outside consultants. 

But who has the time? This support can be seamlessly integrated into existing schedules and structures to ensure this opportunity doesn't encroach on teachers' already limited time.

Practical application: 

• Collaborate between elementary and middle school teachers during in-service and district professional development days.
• Share short video clips demonstrating effective literacy strategies through professional learning communities. 
• Use districtwide communication to share tips and strategies when gathering educators across the district isn’t possible.

2. Embedding Literacy Into Existing Content Training  

Integrate literacy skill development into subject-specific professional development that's likely already taking place. This approach involves including literacy-focused segments when planning workshops for math, science, social studies, and other disciplines. There are already opportunities in the secondary classroom to integrate literacy and reading skills—85% of assignments require reading a text. Educators in middle and high school likely need some insight about how to use the texts they’re already studying to do double duty—firm up reading skills and explore the content.

Practical application:

• Provide strategies to support students in reading and interpreting scientific, historical, and mathematical texts during subject-area professional development.
• Incorporate teacher training focused on domain-specific vocabulary instruction.
• Explore the best strategies to help students produce clear, strongly written lab reports, well-supported mathematical proofs, and evidence-based historical research.

3. Ongoing Literacy Resource Libraries

Curate comprehensive online libraries of on-demand literacy resources, lesson plans, videos, and other just-in-time supports for content-area teachers of adolescents. This platform allows teachers to confidently access relevant professional learning in personalized bite-sized chunks at their point of need.

Practical application: 

• Create a Google Site (Classroom) or SharePoint folder with resources organized by topics:
  • Morphology and etymology for teaching academic vocabulary across subjects
  • Text structure and organization for reading comprehension
  • Grammar and conventions for writing improvement
  • Sentence structure and syntax
  • Academic discourse and discussion techniques

This is also a place to store any cross-school collaboration resources you might gather throughout the year.

Practical application:

• Add presentation materials and slide decks from cross-school presentations on literacy for teachers to access after the fact. 
• Store video clips demonstrating effective literacy strategies that have been shared through PLCs for districtwide access. 
• Include any districtwide communications that include tips, tricks, or resource links for all educators to view when needed.

Finally, there’s an opportunity to make the space collaborative and customizable for all educators.  

Practical application: 

• Include a mix of publisher-created content and teacher-sourced materials.
• Allow secondary teachers to share practical resources for building students' literacy skills in their classrooms.
• Give teachers from all over the district access, so they can provide useful materials and resources to their peers.

When Your District Needs More Than Self-Supported Adolescent Literacy Strategies

As teaching best practices continue to advance, forward-thinking district leaders recognize the value of enhancing their existing strategies with specialized support for adolescent literacy instruction.

Lexia Aspire® Professional Learning provides a comprehensive, high-quality solution explicitly designed for adolescent literacy professional learning. Aspire provides more than 50 self-paced courses covering critical word recognition, language comprehension, and reading comprehension competencies. With more than 100 hours of education, teachers can select the areas most relevant to their needs.  

An always-available internal resource library ensures teachers have on-demand access to improve their literacy instructional skills. It creates a centralized hub for best practices, fresh ideas, and ongoing support.

Bridge the Gap for Middle School Success

While focusing on early literacy instruction is crucial, we must also prioritize the adolescent literacy needs of students in grades 4–8. Providing thoughtful literacy professional development for secondary teachers helps bridge gaps and prepares all students for high school, college, career, and life success.  Targeted professional learning with the three additional approaches mentioned leverages internal expertise and minimizes added workloads, creating a sustainable approach to the essential role of literacy instruction in secondary classrooms.