By Connie Harris
July 2007

FSU EDUCATION RESEARCHERS BEGIN ADOLESCENT LITERACY INITIATIVE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Researchers in Florida State University’s College of Education and Florida Center for Reading Research have received a $100,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation to form the FSU Adolescent Literacy Initiative, a program designed to increase the number of adolescents who become proficient readers.

The program will provide preservice teachers with knowledge of literacy training specific to their academic field and the skills to teach their students how to comprehend and create texts in English, mathematics, social sciences and science. Pamela “Sissi” Carroll, a professor and the chairwoman of the department of middle and secondary education, is principal investigator of the project. Renowned literacy researcher Barbara Foorman, who holds the title of Francis Eppes Professor in the College of Education and is director of the Florida Center for Reading Research, is co-principal investigator, along with Sharilyn Steadman, an assistant professor of middle and secondary education.

In addition to its primary mission to increase the number of proficient adolescent readers and writers, the Adolescent Literacy Initiative will develop preservice teachers’ roles as researchers, teaching them to use student data to improve instruction and teaching methods, and develop a model of preservice teacher education in the area of literacy that is sustainable within FSU and portable to other universities. Specific coursework will be developed to achieve these goals, and teacher education students will have the opportunity to work with master teachers -- current education professionals who will serve as mentors to the students throughout their preservice experience.

Through the coursework, the preservice teachers’ ability to plan and execute improved literacy training methods in the classroom is expected to directly enhance the students’ ability to learn. Throughout the project, both the teachers’ progress and that of their students will be monitored to determine the success of the program’s components and make any necessary adjustments.

The $100,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York will be accompanied by $25,000 from the FSU College of Education to support course development and project research. College of Education researchers will partner with faculty from specific subject areas in the FSU College of Arts and Sciences to design the coursework used in the study, which began July 1 and is scheduled to continue until Dec. 31, 2008.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York (www.carnegie.org) was created by Andrew Carnegie -- a 19th-century businessman and philanthropist -- in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. As a grant-making foundation, the corporation seeks to carry out Carnegie’s vision of philanthropy, which he said should aim “to do real and permanent good in this world.”

The Florida Center for Reading Research is part of FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, an interdisciplinary center serving to improve and advance educational training and methods. More information about the institute and its research is available online at www.lsi.fsu.edu.

More information about the College of Education and its departments is available online at www.coe.fsu.edu. More information about the Florida Center for Reading Research is available at www.fcrr.org.

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