The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has developed two methods of working with low-literacy students. One is testing for accommodations for GED testing. The other is integrating the STAR literacy program for adult readers.

A major challenge for juvenile correctional facilities (JCF) is providing literacy instruction to a transitory student population with a wide range of literacy abilities. The purpose of this study was to identify unique literacy profiles of students in long-term JCF taking into consideration their reading abilities, language abilities,…

To better understand the writing skills of juvenile offenders and the components of their writing abilities, this study explored extant data from six measures of adolescents' writing skills administered upon their entrance into a juvenile justice facility. Overall, the 235 students (ages 13-16; Grades 5-11) exhibited low scores on all writing…

Prisons across the United States of America are faced with finding ways to reduce illiteracy rates across adult education. One strategy is to offer reading programs that are based on the science of reading. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine if adults in treatment groups across five midwestern correctional institutions who received a…

Both literacy and career technical education are believed to be linked to better outcomes for juvenile offenders transitioning back to their communities after release. Therefore, this study employed a single group, pretest-posttest design to investigate the extent to which 13 juvenile offenders improved their understanding and completion of…

This study provides the first systematic examination of the status of reading performance among incarcerated youth since the 1978 Project READ report. The purpose of this study was to provide a contemporary depiction of reading skills of a large sample of incarcerated youth, and to provide leaders and administrators with some tangible…

The reading achievement of 398 incarcerated male juvenile offenders was measured at three long-term correctional facilities in three distinct regions of the U.S. Participants were assessed in the areas of word identification, word attack, and comprehension. Results were analyzed by age, ethnicity, and special education status. Overall, reading…

Currently, there is limited research about the relationship between academic, mental health needs, and special education status among populations of incarcerated youth. Additionally, little is known about differences between special education and general education students, or about differences between detained and committed populations. This…