ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the state of adolescent literacy, the link between poor literacy achievement and poverty, and the growing crisis the nation faces in this arena. It discusses the nature of literacy, the authors' expectations for young people's literacy achievement, and ways to promote this achievement. If educators and youth workers are to help young adolescent literacy learners succeed, they need knowledge of three things: What is literacy?; Who are young adolescent literacy learners?; and What are the best ways to promote young adolescents' literacy development? The chapter examines the roles that schools and community agencies have chosen to play in providing compensatory literacy assistance to young adolescents. The community agencies—providing services to youth in the after-school and summer hours and sometimes even during school hours—have played an important but generally unacknowledged role in the compensatory literacy arena. Overlapping general compensatory literacy programs in schools are the special supports provided to young adolescents who are second-language learners.
