James, Cynthia2010-04-142010-04-142007James, C. (2007). Impacting struggling adolescent readers: A socio-psycholinguistic study of junior secondary students in Trinidad. Caribbean Curriculum, 14, 1-301017-5636https://hdl.handle.net/2139/6591This paper analyses the classroom reading behaviours and literacy culture of 19 low SES students, aged 11-14, who scored between 0-30 percent on their primary school exit examinations, and were placed in an English-and-Math intensive Form 1 Remedial class at a junior secondary school in Trinidad. Although there were large differences in reading abilities within the group, poor phonics, syntactic, and semantic competencies impeded decoding and meaning-making for the majority fo the students. A reading interview, the students' reading journals, and a variety of authentic reading stimuli formed a backdrop for surveying six issues. An exploratory analysis of 8 two-hour sessions over a period of eight weeks suggest that isolating the students in a concentrated English-and-Math intensive programme would increase their stigamtization and encourage reading fossilization. A blend of interactive, transactional, sociocultural, and engagement approaches seems likely to promote the best outcomes. It is also suggested that given the students' lack of access to the potential literacy benefits of high-end technology, that they be at least exposed to a wider range of sign system literacies for making meaning from textenReading abilityReading programmesSecondary school studentsJunior secondary schoolsLow ability studentsTrinidad and TobagoArticle