Winter 2006 Activity: Reading Skills Crucial, but Deficient

According to a new ACT report, Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reading Test Reveals About College Readiness, only about half of the nation’s ACT-tested high school students are ready for college-level reading. What’s worse, more students are on track to be ready for college-level reading in eighth and tenth grade than actually turn out to be ready by the time they reach twelfth grade. The report cites two main factors contributing to this situation: State standards in high school reading are insufficient, and too few high school teachers are teaching reading skills or strategies.

Although ACT’s data suggest that the readiness of high school students for college-level reading is far too low, they also show that the clearest differentiator between students who are college ready in reading and students who are not is the ability to comprehend complex texts. Complex text contains multiple layers of meaning, not all of which are immediately apparent to students upon a single superficial reading. Instead, such texts require students to work at unlocking meaning by calling upon sophisticated reading comprehension skills and strategies.

For more information on college readiness and this report, when it becomes available, go to www.act.org/path/policy