For Challenged Readers, Custom-Tailored Texts

By Christina A. Samuels

This is too good to pass up! Note the range of perspectives and questions that we need to answer.

Excerpt, but I hope you will read the entire article.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/23/29books_ep.h33.html

 

“School librarian K.C. Boyd has long been a cheerleader for “street lit”—gritty urban dramas with themes such as gang life or homelessness—as a way to engage the students she works with in a Chicago high school.

Her job, she says, is to get students reading comfortably, then to lead them to more complex works. As part of that goal, she has turned to what is known in library circles as “high interest, low readability” books, such as a series of books by author P.J. Gray, written at a 2nd grade level and featuring teen protagonists and their struggles…..”