The challenges of adolescent literacy in todays school system gives us an overview of how minority students have pronounced disabilities in reading. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) minority students stay in the first leave of reading whish is basic, compared to other students that reach to the level of proficient or advanced readers. It is crucial that students/adolescents learn how to read because they would not develop the skills necessary to use vocabulary, reading strategies and the necessary knowledge needed to comprehend new complex material.
According to the authors "one of the main important conclusions of recent research is the foundational roles of a variety of forms of prior knowledge" the importance of prior knowledge and how it can impact the understanding of different topics such a science, mathematics, history and literature gives the students the opportunity to explore, question and interact fully with the text, but as the authors mention this is one of the main reason struggling adolescent readers have to deal which in this case are minority students. The lack of prior knowledge in a subject effects the students tremendously because they will have limited vocabulary, difficult to understand concepts, and low level courses in reading.
One important current intervention is the "Strategic Literacy Initiative" which consists of teaching genetic reading and strategies but also giving the opportunity to student to develop their own identities as readers therefore enforcing discipline where adolescent readers are expected to read in order to learn. It gives me much joy to learn that History teachers are contributing in a positive way by teaching the student how to analyze texts and to make sense of the kinds of text the students are reading.
According to the authors "there are limitations in the range of texts to which students are exposed in literature classes especially low income communities" the broken educational system has fail to provide the proper education, text, training, and the proper knowledge to students/adolescent readers in order for them to succeed in todays society limiting them to contribute very little to this economy and the future generations.
I agree that a lack of prior knowledge may make reading and comprehending in the disciplines somewhat difficult for students. I think as teachers, we need to help students broaden their schema and world views. We need to help them take the knowledge they do have and that is relevant to their lives, and try to relate it to disciplinary content so that students can build upon their current knowledge. I see this even in second grade, where I am trying to introduce a content to my students and they don't really have a background in the subject matter. Instead of approaching the students as if they have deficits, I try to figure out what they do know do that I can add to their knowledge.
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