This paper is devoted to the second-order closure for compressible turbulent flows with special attention paid to modeling the pressure–strain correlation appearing in the Reynolds stress equation. This term appears as the main one responsible for the changes of the turbulence structures that arise from structural compressibility effects. From the analysis and DNS results of Simone et al. and Sarkar, the compressibility effects on the homogeneous turbulence shear flow are parameterized by the gradient Mach number. Several experiment and DNS results suggest that the convective Mach number is appropriate to study the compressibility effects on the mixing layers. The extension of the LRR model recently proposed by Marzougui, Khlifi and Lili for the pressure–strain correlation gives results that are in disagreement with the DNS results of Sarkar for high-speed shear flows. This extension is revised to derive a turbulence model for the pressure–strain correlation in which the compressibility is included in the turbulent Mach number, the gradient Mach number and then the convective Mach number. The behavior of the proposed model is compared to the compressible model of Adumitroiae et al. for the pressure–strain correlation in two turbulent compressible flows: homogeneous shear flow and mixing layers. In compressible homogeneous shear flows, the predicted results are compared with the DNS data of Simone et al. and those of Sarkar. For low compressibility, the two compressible models are similar, but they become substantially different at high compressibilities. The proposed model shows good agreement with all cases of DNS results. Those of Adumitroiae et al. do not reflect any effect of a change in the initial value of the gradient Mach number on the Reynolds stress anisotropy. The models are used to simulate compressible mixing layers. Comparison of our predictions with those of Adumitroiae et al. and with the experimental results of Goebel et al. shows good qualitative agreement.