Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover school- teacher- and student-level factors that describe effective literacy instruction at the secondary level of high-performing schools. A sub-question of the study focused on whether high-performing schools practiced "literacy across the curriculum." National data suggest only about one-third of secondary-level students in the United States read at a proficient level. A recent trend to improve secondary-level student literacy has been to emphasize literacy development in all content areas. A mixed-method approach was used for this study. A linear regression was executed for all middle and high schools in Indiana for spring 2011, 2012, and 2013 state language arts testing results. This was used to build a predicted language arts scale score based on free and reduced lunch status for all schools. Four schools (two middle schools and two high schools) with three consecutive years of posted language arts testing results above their predicted scores were selected for a qualitative multiple case study. Teachers and administrators were interviewed and surveyed regarding their school literacy practices. This study discovered common themes regarding the literacy practices of all four high-performing schools, which included (a) high levels of teacher collaboration among the language arts teachers, (b) the incorporation of high interest reading materials while working with students on their reading comprehension skills, (c) strong levels of teacher commitment and personal responsibility among the language arts teachers to see student literacy improve, and (d) a lack of a common instructional method to improve student literacy, and none of the four schools in the study presented evidence of a developed across-the-curriculum culture for literacy development. Based on the findings, this study determined that matters of professional teaching culture such as collaboration and personal commitment may be stronger factors in student literacy development than a particular instructional approach. School leaders are reminded that the language arts teachers of a school lay the foundation of effective student literacy development. Before school leaders embark on adopting any across the curriculum approach to literacy development, it is needed to first focus on the professional functioning of the language arts staff in a school, particularly in matters of culture such as collaboration, commitment, and an interest in sharing the challenge of improving student literacy with other colleagues. Finally, each high-performing school's language arts staff demonstrated that one particular best-practice approach to student literacy development does not work for all. It is more critical for language arts teachers to be well-versed in a variety of best practice approaches to student literacy development, and work collaboratively with teaching colleagues to employ the best-practice approaches our students need at that time to improve their reading and writing skills.

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