At the end of compulsory schooling, a quarter of European adolescents do not meet the minimal standards in reading literacy required for life-long learning and a satisfactory private and professional life (cf. the PISA-surveys). Funded by the European Commission (2006-2009), the ADORE Project «Teaching Struggling Adolescent Readers – A Comparative Study of Good Practice in European Countries» involved researchers and practitioners from the following 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland. During a 2-year-investigation period, transnational teams observed extraordinary examples of classroom instruction in all respective countries and identified key elements of good practice concerning reading instruction on different levels: classroom practice, schools, communities and national educational systems. The ADORE-book intends to be a guide for decision-makers and practitioners who want to improve the reading instruction for struggling adolescent readers.

Christine Garbe, Ph.D., Professor of German Language and Literature, focussing on Literature Instruction and Reading Research, has been teaching at the Leuphana University of Lueneburg from 1996 to 2010. Since 2010 she is at the University of Cologne. Karl Holle, Ph.D., is Senior University Lecturer of German Language and Literature, focussing on Language Instruction and Reading Research at the Leuphana University of Lueneburg. Swantje Weinhold, Ph.D., is Professor of German Language and Literature, focussing on Language Instruction, Research on Language Acquisition, Writing, and Text Production at the Leuphana University of Lueneburg.