Adolescent Readers and the Effect of Direct, Systematic Reading Instruction

Many adolescent students have poor word recognition skills and struggle in all content area. Students who struggle with word recognition skills need systematic phonics instruction through resources that are attractive and engaging. This study examines if young adolescents benefit from phonics instruction. There were eight adolescent students from a rural school in Northwest Ohio who participated in the study. Quantitative data was collected using the AIMS WEB curriculum-based measures. The results indicate that all students who participated in the study benefited from systematic phonics instruction. Thus, adolescent students with word recognition deficits could benefit from systematic phonics instruction.