Reorganizing priorities to strengthen adolescent literacy skills is critical for the U.S. education system to succeed, according to a new, comprehensive report from the Carnegie Corporation.
The U.S. education system has had many successes in improving the reading skills of younger children, say the authors. However, the evidence is clear that gains fade as students move through the middle grades.
Time to Act calls for U.S. school administrators to focus their efforts towards improving reading and writing skills in late elementary, middle, and high school grades, and teach these skills within the context of specific subject areas.
According to the report, “Beyond grade 3, adolescent learners in our schools must decipher more complex passages, synthesize information at a higher level, and learn to form independent conclusions based on evidence.”
Merit reading and writing programs have a strong track record of improving the reading and writing skills of upper elementary and secondary pupils.
Merit scaffolds the learning process, provides contextual feedback, and continuously reinforces knowledge as students work through lessons at their own pace. The software is intuitive, easy to use, and requires minimal training.
Teachers love using Merit, and built-in tracking allows them to follow students’ progress and intervene when a student is having trouble.
Merit provides insights gained from the many instructors who have used the materials with a variety of types of pupils. Teachers are not left on their own when determining the best ways to use the software with learners.