Should Adolescents Go Back to the Basics? A Review of Teaching Word Reading Skills to Middle and High School Students

The purpose of this review was to explore the effectiveness of teaching basic reading skills to adolescents. Studies that were published in the past 20 years from 1986 to 2006 were selected and reviewed on the basis of specific criteria for inclusion. Results indicated that there were 23 studies that met the criteria. Findings revealed that various programs and methods designed to teach basic reading skills were implemented with adolescents to determine their effectiveness on word identification, fluency, and comprehension skills. An analysis revealed an overall strong effect of teaching basic reading skills on adolescents' reading achievement performance, particularly on their fluency performance. Limitations and directions for future research are described as well as implications for secondary educators.