Tackling Tough Texts

“Tackling tough texts is a challenging task for teachers and students—and guiding teachers on how to do this is a challenge for teacher educators and researchers. Lupo, Reynolds, and Hardigree provide research-based, accessible, eminently classroom-applicable guidance in this elegantly written book. I am grateful to the authors for their leadership and wisdom. I recommend this book highly for teachers, teacher educators, and professional development providers.”

—Elfrieda H. Hiebert, PhD, President and CEO, TextProject


“This is the secondary-level book I have been waiting for. I will refer to it constantly in conversations about Tier 1 instruction with instructional coaches, content-area professional learning communities, and principals. This book will provide our secondary social studies, science, ELA, EL, and special education teachers with a strong, shared foundation in teaching for meaning through reading, writing, and vocabulary instruction.”

—Nadya Bech-Conger, MAT, Associate Director of Teaching and Learning, Burlington School District (Vermont)


“Many secondary educators teach adolescents who arrive in middle or high school without solid literacy skills. This book offers practical, succinct, and coherent recommendations for how to leverage literacy scaffolds so that students—regardless of reading stage or confidence level—can understand and learn from challenging texts. Solidly grounded in recent adolescent-focused research, and balanced by case study examples of the research in action, this is an urgently needed resource for secondary practitioners who want to achieve rigorous grade-level instruction across disciplines.”

—Casandra Baber, MEd, reading specialist, Monticello High School, Charlottesville, Virginia


“With lively, down-to-earth, research-based guidance, Lupo, Reynolds, and Hardigree help teachers navigate the complexity of supporting adolescent readers. This book will help educators find challenging texts worth reading, identify what makes those texts challenging, and create purpose-driven scaffolds for reading in the disciplines. Following the guidance in this book has the potential to help adolescents read more—and read more successfully. I highly recommend this book as a text or supplement in secondary literacy methods courses. Students can read it, discuss it, and use it to plan lessons for their practicum experiences.”

—Dianna Townsend, EdD, College of Education and Human Development, University of Nevada, Reno


“Every teacher must be a literacy teacher. This book is essential reading for secondary educators in all content areas who are looking for methods to scaffold students’ reading and comprehension. Read it cover to cover for a deeper understanding of the multiple elements that affect students’ ability to access complex texts, or read chapters on specific types of scaffolds needed for a given student and text. I can’t wait to share this book with our professional learning communities!”

—Summerlyn Lotz Thompson, EdD, Principal, Walker Upper Elementary School, Charlottesville, Virginia