High School Reading Not Challenging Enough, Says ACT

Curriculum Changes Require Action by Policymakers and Educators

March 1, 2006

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Substantial experience with complex reading texts in high school is the key to development of college-level reading skills, according to a new report by ACT that calls for major changes in high school reading standards and instruction. The report, titled "Reading Between the Lines," concludes that too many American high school students are graduating without the reading skills they'll need to succeed in college and in workforce training programs.

"The research reveals a very serious problem," said Richard L. Ferguson, ACT's chief executive officer. "Too few students are developing the level of reading skills they'll need after high school."

ACT research shows the clear benefits experienced by students who are ready for college-level reading: They are more likely to enroll in college in the fall following high school graduation, earn higher grades in college social science courses, earn higher first-year college grade point averages, and return to the same college for a second year in higher proportions than do students who are not ready for college-level reading.

ACT's findings suggest the ability to read complex texts is the clearest differentiator between students who are more likely to be ready for college-level reading and those who are less likely to be ready. Unfortunately, the majority of states don't define the types of reading materials to which high school students in each specific grade should be exposed, and not a single state defines what complex texts are. All of the state standards are silent on this matter.

"It's clear that our high schools should be incorporating more complex reading materials into courses across the curriculum," said Ferguson. "All states should consider incorporating higher-level reading skills into their state standards. If they are made a priority in the state's standards, teachers are more likely to teach them and students are more likely to learn them."

Only about half (51%) of the nearly 1.2 million 2005 high school graduates who took the ACT college admission and placement exam met the College Readiness Benchmark for reading on the exam, the lowest level in more than a decade. Students who reach or exceed the benchmark are likely ready to handle the reading requirements for typical credit-bearing first-year college social science courses. The percentage of students prepared for college-level reading peaked at 55 percent in 1999 and has declined since.

ACT's findings suggest that many high school teachers are not incorporating higher-level reading materials—the types of texts that students will encounter in college and in the workforce—into their classes.

In addition, even where reading is included in the high school curriculum, low teacher expectations can hamper students' ability to master complex reading skills, according to the ACT report. The results of ACT's National Curriculum Survey^®, completed by thousands of high school teachers across the country in 2003, suggest that high school teachers are more likely to teach higher-order critical reading skills to classes of students they perceive to be college-bound than to classes of students they assume are not going to college.

"The impact of low expectations is devastating to students," said Ferguson. "We have a moral imperative to give all students the opportunity to develop critical reading skills in high school."

ACT's findings further reveal that reading skills often fail to develop as expected during the high school years. Results from ACT's EXPLORE^® and PLAN^® assessments indicate that a greater percentage of 8th- and 10th-grade students are on target to be ready for college-level reading than the percentage who are actually ready when they graduate from high school. This suggests that students are not continuing to develop their reading skills in the final two years of high school.

ACT research suggests that reading is a skill important to college success in all academic areas, not just in social science courses. The data show that students who are college-ready in reading are also significantly more likely to be college-ready in English, math, and science than those who are not college-ready in reading.

The ACT report defines the types of materials that need to be included in all high school courses in English, math, social studies, and science and provides a number of sample reading passages that illustrate the six essential features of complex texts. These six features, which can be abbreviated to "RSVP," are:

Relationships—Interactions among ideas or characters in the text are subtle, involved, or deeply embedded.
Richness—The text possesses a sizable amount of highly sophisticated information conveyed through data or literary devices.
Structure—The text is organized in ways that are elaborate and sometimes unconventional.
Style—The author's tone and use of language are often intricate.
Vocabulary—The author's choice of words is demanding and highly context-dependent.
Purpose—The author's intent in writing the text is implicit and sometimes ambiguous.

The ACT report also offers a number of recommendations to educators and policymakers on how to help to increase the numbers of high school graduates who are ready for college-level reading, including:

Strengthen reading instruction in all high school courses by incorporating complex reading materials into course content.
Revise state standards so that they both explicitly define reading expectations across the high school curriculum and incorporate increasingly complex texts into the English, mathematics, science, and social studies courses in grades 9 through 12.
Make targeted interventions to help students who have fallen behind in their reading skills.
Provide high school teachers with guidance and support to incorporate the kinds of complex text materials into their courses that are most likely to increase students' readiness for college-level reading.
Strengthen high school assessments so that they align with improved state standards and high school instruction across the curriculum.