Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers

Recharge Adolescent Literacy: Strategies to Foster Joyful and Proficient Readers

There are many adolescent readers who, for a variety of reasons, find it difficult to connect with written words and have fallen behind on their foundational reading skills. Thankfully, it’s never too late to give these necessary skills a boost and help students find joy in reading and learning. Armed with equity, empathy, evidence-based research, and practical application, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers provides classroom practices teachers can use with the whole class or with small groups to integrate reading support seamlessly with grade-level content learning.

Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, along with Sarah Ortega, Kierstan Barbee, and Aida Allen-Rotell, creatively organize the book around a metaphor: adolescent literacy is a battery—when all the parts are connected, working together, and fully charged—literacy can thrive. Throughout the book, the following features will guide your learning:

• Plug Into the Research – an overview of the evidence-based research supporting each section of the literacy model
• Power Up Classroom Practice – connecting the dots on the research, classroom practice and human aspects of learning
• Voices from the Field – classroom examples of application and strategies from other secondary educators
• Take Charge – key takeaways and reflection questions
• Tips on building and organizing your classroom library to incorporate tools, technology, and media available to maximize lesson effectiveness
• Dozens of videos to model time-efficient strategies and key concepts

By focusing on research, classroom practices, and the human aspects of learning, this book is an essential tool to recharge reading practices for adolescent readers and help educators increase foundational reading skills in the classroom.

• Publication date: 7 July 2025
• Page count: 208
• Dimensions: Height 216 mm; Width 276 mm; Thickness 15 mm
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc
• Format: Paperback
• ISBN-13: 9781071909072