This study examines the relationship between types and sequences of selfregulated reading activities in task-oriented reading with quality of task achievement of 51 low-achieving adolescents (Grade 8). The study used think aloud combined with video observations to analyse the students' approach of a content-area reading task in the stages of orientation, text reading and answering questions. Results show that in general these low-achieving adolescents are infrequently monitoring their text comprehension or making connections with prior knowledge. Nevertheless, important differences are found between types and sequences of self-regulated reading activities related to task achievement. The low-achieving adolescents showing a straightforward linear approach to the task (orientation, reading of the whole text and finally answering of questions) yielded more success. In addition, readers demonstrating more activities directed at connections between text contents and prior knowledge during reading showed better task achievement. Implications of these findings for literacy education of this special group of adolescents are discussed.Reading comprehension is an important factor for academic and professional success and a requirement for participation in the information society. Although many adolescents acquire sufficient competence in reading comprehension without much difficulty, various studies have shown that a substantial part of the adolescent student population struggles with reading comprehension and performs below the levels required by the school curriculum (Alliance for Excellent

This study examines the relationship between patterns of cognitive selfregulatory activities and the quality of texts produced by adolescent struggling writers (N = 51). A think-aloud study was conducted involving analyses of self-regulatory activities concerning planning, formulating, monitoring, revising, and evaluating. The study shows that the writing processes of adolescent struggling writers have much in common with "knowledge telling" as defined by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987). Nevertheless, there are interesting differences among the individual patterns. First, it appears that adolescent struggling writers who put more effort in planning and formulation succeed in writing better texts than do their peers. Furthermore, selfregulation of these better-achieving writers is quite varied in comparison to the others. Therefore, it seems that within this group of struggling writers, self-regulation does make a difference for the quality of texts produced. Consequently, some recommendations can be made for the stimulation of diverse self-regulatory activities in writing education for this special group of students. 304 Written Communication 29(3) Keywords writing processes, poor writers, low-achieving writers, writing strategies, knowledge telling, writing performance, protocol think-aloud Learning to write well is a necessity for young people (Graham & Perin, 2007). Along with reading comprehension, writing skill is an important factor for academic and professional success and a basic requirement for participation in the current information society. Yet, studies in a range of countries have signaled that many adolescents struggle with literacy and that large numbers of adolescents are unable to write at the levels required by the school curriculum and future employers (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006;

This longitudinal study explored the degree in which level and development of writing proficiency of a group of 63 low-achieving adolescents can be explained by their engagement in literacy activities. These adolescents were intensively followed from grades 7 to 9, measuring their writing proficiency and their engagement each year focusing on affective, cognitive and behavioral aspects of engagement. Results indicate that level of writing proficiency increases from year to year, but that this development cannot be predicted by any of the engagement measures. In contrast, the level of writing proficiency of the students can be explained by aspects of affective and behavioral engagement. Therefore, the results underline the importance of distinguishing between the level and development of writing proficiency in examining relationships between engagement and writing achievement of low-achieving adolescents. Although average level of students' writing proficiency is explained by affective and behavioral engagement, these aspects of engagement do not explain growth in writing proficiency in the course of the three grades studied. Implications of these findings for future research and for educational practice are discussed.