ABSTRACT

This chapter describes two summer literacy programs. These are: the New Orleans Effective Schools Project, a school-based program, and the Cross-Age Tutoring Program of the Literacy Council of Alaska, a community-based program located in Fairbanks. These two programs show that teaching reading by reading is a highly effective instructional method. The young adolescents who participate in these two programs also say they appreciate the respect they are shown by the teachers. At Adventures in Excellence, students read orally and silently, write, discuss their reading and writing, and actively participate in the instructional process with hardly a pause over the three-hour session. Though the summer program was designed primarily to help students maintain and improve their reading comprehension skills, it has also proven to be a highly effective model for professional staff development. The cross-age program was founded in 1985 in response to requests received by the Literacy Council of Alaska for a free school-age summer remedial program.