This project focused on dilemmas facing secondary teachers when students in high school classrooms cannot read at grade level. With increasing pressure on districts to meet No Child Left Behind mandates, workshops and conferences have been springing up nationwide to offer services to teachers to help address problems associated with reading achievement. But the problem persists; even in high performing high schools, there are still a significant number of students who cannot read on grade level, presenting challenges for teachers unprepared to identify and remediate poor reading skills. This project focused on what is needed to address reading deficiencies across the content areas, and further, to determine if teachers are getting what they need. A survey was developed to gather information directly from secondary teachers and sent to a random selection of 1000 districts nationwide.

To guide development of the survey, the team conducted a review of related literature, and identified five standards for reading professionals, as recommended by the International Reading Association. Data were collected from 315 secondary teachers representing 19 states, with each teacher responding to 25 questions. The data were disaggregated by district type, years of teaching experience, level of education, and content area.

In addition to identifying critical foundational and professional needs for effective literacy instruction at the secondary level, results also revealed significant differences in subgroups indicating the need for differentiated professional development in order to increase reading achievement. Recommendations were made to address secondary reading and content area professional development. Professional development should include time to review and evaluate the reading level of each student listed on teachers' class lists to provide evidence of the critical need for concurrent differentiated instruction and remediation in reading skills. Accountability for identifying reading levels and addressing the needs of students reading below grade level are indicated. When faced with below grade level readers, secondary teachers have specific needs that should be addressed, supported, and evaluated to assure students' adequate comprehension of grade level concepts and objectives.