Helping middle school and high school students to deal with the staggering demands of the reading content that they encounter in their daily academic activities may be the single most overlooked area of need in K-12 education.

Similarly, failure to match teenage readers with informational content written at appropriate readability levels may be a hidden cause of lower-than-expected achievement on high-stakes tests.

Our education system must move beyond the erroneous assumptions that students receive all reading instruction they need in the elementary grades and that the readability level of texts does not matter.

Neglect of strategic reading skills instruction in grades 7-12 can have a negative impact on students' test results, mastery of content area coursework, and successful preparation for adult roles. Moreover, the No Child Left Behind legislation makes reading proficiency all the more important.

Leading with Reading in Grades 7-12, a print-video resource kit, will help education leaders to focus schools on content area reading skills and strategies. The kit includes:

• information to build a case for implementing strategic reading initiatives with all stakeholders across the school community
  
• instructional best practices in content area reading
  
• sample lessons and activities that provide ideas for a strategic reading curriculum or integrated instruction in the content areas
  
• an explanation of the Lexile Framework and how it is used to measure readability of text sources. $295

Click here for the Table of Contents and an Order Form