“Major changes in instruction and infrastructure must occur to address the literacy challenges of adolescents and the increased literacy demands placed on them. This book can help these changes to happen. Thorough, hopeful, and proactive, the book takes up both enduring and emerging issues and offers fresh perspectives that are cognizant of current realities and constraints. This book deserves to be read by teachers, administrators, and teacher educators.”

—Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, PhD, Department of English, and Director, Boise State Writing Project, Boise State University


“With the advent of long-overdue federal attention to adolescent readers through Reading Next, Lenski and Lewis's book is appearing at just the right time! The volume provides an excellent overview of theoretical and practical issues related to working with adolescents who struggle with literacy. Besides offering sound, research-based ideas for instructional strategies, it also deals with often-overlooked issues, such as working with parents of adolescents and building home–school connections at this critical age. The chapter on supporting upper-level literacy coaches is especially welcome. This book should be on the bookshelf of everyone who works with adolescent striving readers.”

—Camille Blachowicz, PhD, Director, The Reading Center, National-Louis University


“An invaluable tool for understanding and helping the adolescent learner. The contributors are exceptional literacy scholars who provide an excellent blend of theory and practice as they examine the reading, writing, and learning challenges of struggling adolescents. I will keep this book readily accessible on my bookshelf and would recommend it to teacher educators, researchers, and practitioners. As theprincipal of a private school for troubled teens, I am going to use chapters from this book in our weekly teacher study group.”

—Carol M. Santa, PhD, Director of Education, Montana Academy, Marion, Montana


“No literacy issue is more pressing than addressing the learning needs of adolescent students. Fully a third of teens are suffering from reading problems—this book offers a wide array of practical solutions.”

—Timothy Shanahan, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Chicago


“This volume provides a comprehensive treatment of the topic, complete with promising practices. It is a wonderful resource for anyone concerned with the fate of older struggling readers.”

—Richard L. Allington, PhD, Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education, University of Tennessee