ORONO – Basic reading and writing are no longer sufficient for today’s high school students who must demonstrate strong literacy and critical thinking skills to meet performance-based standards in all subject areas. Beginning today, Aug. 4, and running through Aug. 12, the University of Maine’s Adolescent Literacy Institute will offer a national model course to help content-area teachers boost students’ reading skills.

The three-credit hour graduate institute is designed for secondary school teachers in all disciplines. It will enable teachers to understand and help students meet the literacy demands of higher academic standards. Participants may also complete a three-credit practicum course offered in five follow-up sessions during the 2005-06 school year.

Presented by the Maine Writing Project and the UMaine College of Education and Human Development, the institute centers on the course, “Teaching Reading through Teacher and Student Inquiry.” Tanya Baker, the Writing Project’s co-director for professional development, is the institute’s lead teacher.

Maine’s Adolescent Literacy program, designed through a partnership with the Northeast & Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University, began as part of a national demonstration site to create, sustain and study school-wide literacy initiatives at the high school level. One of few such projects in the country, the Maine model is distinctive because of its collaboration and alignment with major state education priorities and secondary school reform initiatives.

In addition to Baker, content area teachers who already have taken the course and are weaving literacy development into their classroom instruction will be on hand to share their work and act as guides and mentors to institute participants.