What Is It?
For a systemic adolescent literacy initiative to succeed, the goals and structure of the initiative, and of how literacy is a
priority throughout the educational program, must be broadly communicated and adequately resourced so that it is taken seriously and
supported by teachers, students, parents, community members, specialists, and administrators alike. This is an ongoing task
throughout the life of the initiative.
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Suggested Strategies and Resources
Priorities are clearly communicated through the allocation of the resources of time, money, space, printed and spoken messages, and materials. The school context of teaching and learning, in schools where students are "beating the odds," is palpable; it can be felt as soon as people come in the door (see case descriptions of such schools at http://cela.albany.edu/reports/eie1/index.html).
If there is a decision to support literacy as a central focus of the secondary educational program, this should be visible in all of the school's work and throughout the school environment. Everybody needs to know what is
going on and how it is being supported. Even more importantly, everyone needs to believe that struggling readers and writers can improve their literacy skills to the point where they can be successful in the content areas.
The messages need to come from building and district administrators, curriculum specialists and department heads, teachers, and
students, and need to be constantly reinforced. If high expectations for literacy and learning are not demonstrated by teachers and administrators, not built into teacher evaluation structures and practices, not reflected in the available materials and resources, and do not lead to students having adequate support for their literacy development, the initiative will likely fail.
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Questions to Think About
Before you can implement this Key Component, your stakeholders will need to consider some or all of these questions. The questions could be used in group discussions, needs sensing activities, and informal small-group conversations.
- Is this best practice already in place in your organization (see practice listed at the top of the page)? What would it take to put this into place?
- Are there other key support structures that you would see as essential to the success of an adolescent literacy initiative?
- What do you see as the most important goals of an adolescent literacy initiative in your school or district? What are the most
pressing literacy problems? How do you feel these would best be addressed within the context of your educational program?
- What kinds of professional development do you feel would be most helpful to teachers?
- How do you think an adolescent literacy initiative in the content areas could best be promoted in your district? How would you strategize to get teacher support? Parent support? Student support? Community support?
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