Achieving State and National Literacy Goals A Long Uphill Road

Recent reform efforts have yielded positive results in improving reading achievement for the nation's children in the primary grades, but many children are not moving beyond basic "decoding" skills even as they advance to the fourth grade and classes in history, mathematics and science. This is especially troubling since adolescents are facing a post-secondary job market that demands high levels of literacy skills.In an effort to focus national attention on the problem of adolescent literacy, the Carnegie Corporation of New York launched a new initiative, Advancing Literacy: Reading to Learn. Carnegie's objective is to advance adolescent literacy, which encompasses reading and writing in grades 4?12, by promoting policy, practice, and research in this field. As a first step, Carnegie asked the RAND Corporation to convene a small study group for one year to lay the foundation for the work of a larger Advisory Council and to undertake a study examining the state of adolescent literacy achievement in the nation. Our analysis focused on three research questions: 1. To what extent are adolescents (defined as students in the 4th through 12th grades) meeting state literacy goals, as measured by state assessments? 2. To what extent are adolescents meeting national literacy goals, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)? 3. To what extent are the results from state assessments and the NAEP consistent with one another?McCombs, Jennifer Sloan is the author of 'Achieving State and National Literacy Goals A Long Uphill Road', published 0000 under ISBN 9780833037107 and ISBN 0833037102.