Research & Projects

Two young girls lay on the floor of a library between shelves of books. They look together at an open book.

Current & Recent Projects

Adolescent Literacy Needs Assessment (2025)

During the Fall 2025, the Center is conducting an adolescent literacy needs assessment. The purpose of this research to learn from schools and organizations serving youth from 4th grade through early adulthood (grades 4-12+) what strengths and challenges they face with literacy and literacy-related learning. We hope to learn about the strengths and challenges organizations encounter related to their work with adolescents literacy and literacy-related learning and from this to develop ways to support schools and community organizations serving adolescents.

Freedom School Evaluation (2009 to 2024)

The Center for Adolescent Literacies collaborated with Freedom School Partners, Inc. of Charlotte between 2009 to 2024 to evaluate the reading program component of Charlotte-area Children’s Defense Fund© Freedom Schools. This program evaluation began as a collaboration with the Institute for Social Capital in 2009 as a pilot study, and CAL took on this evaluation work in 2010 and over that time has provided evidence of the impact on reading outcomes for Freedom School Scholars. The Center partnered with the Center for Educational Measurement and Evaluation at UNC Charlotte to conduct surveys of Scholars and Servant Leader Interns about their experiences. Below are copies of recent reports:

ReadWriteServe Tutoring Programs (2007 to 2022)

The Center for Adolescent Literacies has been a leader in developing and supporting tutoring programs that support K-12 students for more than 15 years. The Center developed and led the America Reads program which employed hundreds of UNC Charlotte students tutoring K-8 students in the Charlotte region from 2007 to 2022. College students were employed through Federal Work Study as reading tutors and tutor leaders at schools around Charlotte providing one-on-one tutoring two to three times per week. In addition, the Center worked with non-profit organizations including the United Way of Greater Charlotte, Greater Enrichment Programs, Inc., the YWCA of Central Carolinas, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Carolinas as well as university faculty and staff to train and support them as volunteer tutors working with K-12 students across the Charlotte region. The Center has developed materials and training in support of these efforts as well as evaluation measures. Over the years, the Center has trained approximately 1,500 literacy tutors.

Service Learning Programs

The Center has been a leader in developing service learning initiatives at UNC Charlotte and with school partners in Charlotte Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, and Kannapolis City Schools. Center colleagues Tina Heafner, Tracy Rock, and Bruce Taylor created Literacy for Democracy which brought together service learner and literacy involving teacher education students with K-8 students. This work also involved collaborations with teachers in Kannapolis City Schools to develop service learning with elementary students. This work has been funded by grants from the Corporation for National and Community Service in conjunction with the Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education (SCALE) in Carborro, NC, the National Youth Literacy Network, Bank of America Faculty Research Award, and the Dollar General Foundation.