We bring expertise in academic literacy development and in Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning to help assess literacy development programming and implementation efforts, support the development and implementation of responsive solutions to improve achievement outcomes, and provide literacy-development trainings to equip teachers with practical knowledge and tools to lead students’ to successfully exercise the academic literacy practices specific to their courses.
Our approaches to literacy development evolved from decades of practical experiences geared to significantly improve the academic literacy skills and achievement outcomes of urban secondary students. Our work is informed by a broad base of educational research resulting from decades of domain-specific research seeking to explain factors that contribute to academic underachievement, how learning is constructed, how language develops and affects learning in school, how perceptions of learning influence motivation and engagement in learning, and how the cognitive-processing limitations of working memory impact the accessibility and manageability of learning. Findings from these and other research areas combine to explain how curricular, teaching, and learning efforts can be designed to overcome impediments to achievement, provide all students access to learning, and guide and support learning in ways that inspire deep levels of sustainable engagement and ensure success in learning.