Abstract
This teacher action research project served as the Culminating Experience for a Masters of Arts in Education: Curriculum and Instruction with an Elective Emphasis on Arts in Education. The author formulated the question, Does standards based, sustained visual art instruction result in significant gains in reading achievement for incarcerated youth? The author was a classroom teacher of art, in a maximum-security housing unit in a youth detention facility. Over an 18-month period, reading pre and post-test scores were compiled and analyzed. These scores were contrasted with data derived from student scores from another maximum-security unit where no art instruction took place. The main questions that guided the literature review were as follows: What is the theory and practices of arts in education? Is there a connection between a young person‟s cognitive development and participation in the arts? What prior research has been conducted measuring reading achievement in incarcerated juvenile offenders who received standards based art instruction? In addition to the vi quantitative data, qualitative data included the author‟s narrative observations and, student case studies that included work samples. The author concluded that standards based, sustained visual art instruction does result in significant gains in reading achievement for incarcerated youth.