The Science of Reading in the Secondary Classroom

This workshop applies the principles of the Science of Reading to middle and high school classrooms, bridging research on how students learn to read with practical strategies for adolescent literacy. Participants explore ways to improve comprehension by explicitly teaching keyword identification, context clues, and text annotation during reading. The session also emphasizes pre-reading prediction, active reading strategies, and post-reading synthesis such as summarizing and mind mapping. Through modeling, examples, and interactive practice, teachers gain tools to support struggling readers while maintaining rigor across content areas.

• Secondary students often lack foundational literacy strategies, making it difficult to access complex texts.
  
  
• Content-area teachers may be unsure how to integrate reading instruction into subject lessons.
  
  
• Limited use of explicit strategies (keywords, context clues, annotation, summarization) that help students engage deeply with texts.
  
  
• Gaps in adolescent reading fluency and comprehension that impact overall academic performance.

1. Explicit Strategy Instruction
   Participants will learn how to teach students to use strategies such as identifying keywords, applying context clues, and annotating text to improve comprehension.
   
   
2. Structured Pre-, During-, and Post-Reading Practices
   Educators will practice guiding students through structured phases of reading, including making predictions before reading, actively analyzing during reading, and synthesizing ideas after reading.
   
   
3. Supporting Struggling Readers Across Content Areas
   Teachers will leave with actionable tools to embed literacy practices into all subject areas, ensuring that even students with reading gaps can access and succeed with grade-level texts.