Reading #2

KWL

Chapter 4 - Planning for Content Literacy

How do we teach reading within our content area.

Know:

I know a few things about content literacy. I know that it is incredibly important for our students to be focused on reading in each of their subjects, whenever possible. This is especially true given the gap in reading achievement in particular for lower-income black inner city students.

I also have some strategies: Before You Read, While You Read, and After You Read Questions. Modeling Read Aloud, etc.

But I'd like to know more.

Want to Learn:

I want to learn how to reach kids in a very stratified classroom. What are some ways that I can, using the same text, help all learners to improve? Can I give them different activities to do with the same text? If so - what activities? This is a crucial problem in a classroom of 20-25 students in which about 10 are close to grade level, another 10 are a grade or two behind, and the next five may be more than two grade levels behind. This makes teaching the content with a textbook as well as teaching content literacy difficult. In reading this chapter, I'm hoping to come up with some new strategies for helping students in my class learn the content and improve their reading.

Learned:

The debate between a natural language approach to literacy instruction versus literacy skills instruction is interesting. I agree with the author's point that reading (across the curriculum) definitely takes some specific skills to be successful (pg. 93). I also agree that I could do more thinking about these skills and how I use them.

I already somewhat use the first approach that is mentioned: analyzing the reading material to determine how it is organized and what skills are necessary. In my classes, I write up worksheets with various questions to go along with the text - and the questions are always organized to follow the sections as the text. The book lists the following skills to be aware of:

vocabulary-building

note taking and report writing

speaking and listening skills

working effectively with peers

preparing for tests

critical thinking

analysis

prediction

The book goes on to discuss "instructional scaffolding" to aid students who need support when learning. I have tried to do this with my worksheets, but I find that the level of some of the students reading ability is so low that they cannot get through the worksheets without constant supervision on my part. This leads to the necessity of creating lessons without the textbook being the centerpiece. While this is the ideal, I personally find it difficult to consistently come up with activities that are outside the book. However, as I have become more consistent with my student worksheets/teacher led discussion of the worksheet lesson model, I am beginning to have more time to come up with lessons that are outside the textbook.

Here are some more things the book suggests as strategies for active learning:

-Students need to experience ideas not just hear about them (Role playing and simulations are examples)

-Assignments need to be "flexible and take into account students' interests and abilities" (Rather broad, i'd say)

-Environment must be encouraging, even loving

-Students need to understand how the ideas and skills they are learning can make a difference in their lives (motivation, of course)

-Evaluation of students should be flexible and equitable

Some web sites to check out:
http;//teacher.net
www.ibritt.com/resources/tr_content.htm
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
www.marcopolo-education.org/index.aspx

Some more strategies:
Direct Instruction (involves modeling and guided practice of skills)
Instructional Framework (Preparation/Guidance/Independence)
Reciprical Teaching (Apprenticeship/Scaffolding; Initiating and Modeling important skills - such as Questioning, Clarifying, Summarizing, and Predicting)

Finally, school wide literacy programs probably work best (interdisciplinary) and their are different ideas for what may be the best way to organize a curriculum (such as thematically).

Still want to know:

All these things are good, but it is very difficult to achieve, based on my personal first hand experience. As a first year teacher, I would greatly appreciate more direction in lesson planning. We have standards, why not standard lesson plans? I'm not saying lesson plans that we HAVE to use, but having something to go off of would be nice - and why not? A lot of veteran teachers use the same text book and many teachers have similar stratified classrooms. Often, I think about how this would be a great aid to myself as a new teacher.

I think I will try the Reciprocal Teaching approach to teaching reading: I will encourage students to come up with their own questions for sections, clarifying issues, summaries, and predictions. These are all basic reading skills that I think my students could greatly improve upon.