Literacy: Content Area Reading Strategies

1. Literacy: Content Area Reading Strategies

2. The Problem • Between 1973 and 2008, the share of jobs in the U.S. economy requiring postsecondary education increased from 28 percent to 59 percent.

3. Advanced literacy skills across content areas is the best available predictor of students’ ability to succeed in introductory college courses. Yet, since the 1960s, there has been a steady decline in the difficulty and sophistication of the content of the texts students have been asked to read. • About 40 percent of employers indicated that they were dissatisfied with high school graduates’ ability to read and understand complicated materials, think analytically, and solve real-world problems. For those who gain entry into the workplace, the private industry spends an estimated $3.1 billion annually to bolster the literacy skills of entry-level workers (Alliance for Excellence Education, 2011). • High school students’ ability to read complex texts is strongly predictive of their performance in college math and science courses.

4. Specific problem areas • Chief among the challenges students seem to face is the ability to read and understand complex literary and informational texts. Salinger, T. (2010). Addressing the crisis in adolescent literacy. American Institutes for Research. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slcp/finalcrisis.pdf

5. TEXT COMPREHENSION BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING LITERACY KNOWLEDGE SKILLED READING: fluent execution and coordination of word recognition and text comprehension. increasingly strategic WORD RECOGNITION PHON. AWARENESS DECODING (and SPELLING) MORPHOLOGY increasingly automatic The many strands that are woven into skilled reading (Scarborough, 2001)

6. Word recognition and strategies DECODING Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made up of individual units of sound. These units of sound are called phonemes. Adolescents who are phonemically aware, for example, understand that three phonemes, /k/, /a/, and /t/, form the word cat. Decoding or word identification refers to the ability to correctly decipher a particular word out of a group of letters. Phonemic Awareness Phonics Phonics is the understanding of the relationship between the letters in written words and the sounds of these words when spoken

7. Word recognition and strategies MORPHOLOGY Morphology is the study of word structure. Morphology describes how words are formed from morphemes Morphemes A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. A morpheme may be as short as one letter such as the letter, ‘s’. This letter adds plurality to a word such as cats. Likewise, a morpheme can consist of letter combinations that contain meaning. These units of meaning could be roots, prefixes and suffixes.

8. Word recognition and strategies FLUENCY Fluency is the ability to read text accurately and smoothly with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading Fluent readers read text with appropriate speed, accuracy, proper intonation, and proper expression. Some researchers have found a relationship between fluency and text comprehension.

9. Text comprehension and strategies VOCABULARY Print Oral Aural Words recognized and used Collection of words students understand when listening to others speak Words used in reading and writing.

10. vocabulary ACADEMIC VOCABULARY NON-SPECIALIZED WORDS HIGH-FREQUENCY WORDS SPECIALIZED CONTENT AREA WORDS (e.g., examine, cause, formation) everyday words (e.g., building, bus driver, eraser, etc.) (e.g., ecosystem, foreshadowing, octagon) Research findings suggest that there is not a single best way to teach vocabulary rather, using a variety of techniques that include repeated exposures to unknown word meanings produces the best results. (National Institute for Literacy, 2007)

11. Text Comprehension and Deeper Reading

12. Focusing the Reader: Framing the Text • Activating background knowledge (K-W-L) Chart • Investigating text structure • Setting a purpose for reading • Predicting text content • Reviewing and clarifying vocabulary • International Center for Leadership in Education, p.166.

13. Anticipation guides

14. Probable passage

15. Completed Probable Passage

16. Pre-Reading • Before reading the chapter - SCAN: • S - Survey the headings and turn them into questions (the questions will be answered during the reading - questioning is the best way to get the most out of reading non-fiction books). • C - Capture the captions and visuals (read captions and look at the pictures to try and understand what they mean). • A - Attack boldface words (reading boldface words help students understand the vocabulary, which will make the reading more meaningful. Too many students keep reading even though they don't understand the vocabulary, so we will begin each section by reviewing the keywords which will be encountered there). • N - Note and read the chapter questions (read the end of chapter questions first helps focus the reader). (Boynton and Blevins 2003)

17. DURING reading • Establishing the purpose for each part of the reading • Self-monitoring • Visualizing • Summarizing • Confirming/rejecting predictions • Identifying and clarifying key ideas (think about what’s read) • Questioning self • International Center for Leadership in Education, p.166.

18. Text codes

19. More Text Codes

20. Text on Text

21. Two Column notes

22. Color coding • Choose two different colored highlighters (example: pink and yellow) • Students highlight every word of the text, using pink for what they DO NOT understand and yellow for what makes sense. • This helps them monitor their comprehension and figure out where their comprehension breaks down.

23. Collaboration Say Something. This strategy builds in frequent but brief student-to-student conversations while reading. Per your directions, students stop after every stanza, paragraph, section, or set number of pages to engage in structured dialogue about what they are reading, to clear up any confusion before moving on, and to break the habit of reading without stopping to think. Rules for Say Something 1. With your partner, decide who will say something first. 2. When you say something, do one or more of the following: a. Make a prediction b. Ask a question c. Clarify something you misunderstood d. Make a comment e. Make a connection 3. If you can’t do one of these five things, then you need to reread. 4. Your partner should comment on what you have shared, by doing one of the following: a. Agreeing/disagreeing with your prediction b. Answering your question or asking a follow-up question c. Making an additional comment or connection

24. After reading • Assessing if the purpose for reading was met • Paraphrasing important information • Identifying the main idea and details • Making comparisons • Connecting • Drawing conclusions • Summarizing • Analyzing (Students make judgments and form opinions using explicit information from the reading) Derived from the source: International Center for Leadership in Education, p.166.

25. Cloze reading • Choosing a meaningful piece of text and omitting words so that students have the opportunity to fill in the blanks. You could also use this for a summary of a chapter or concept. _________ is nuclear ________plus cytokinesis, and produces two identical ________cells during prophase, _________, metaphase, _________, and _________. Interphase is often included in discussions of mitosis, but _________is technically _______part of mitosis, but rather encompasses stages ______, _____, and ____of the cell cycle.

26. Flip side chart

27. Text/reading comprehension and strategies Phase 1: Explicit training and teacher modeling. Effective strategy instruction begins with teacher talk, which can take the form of a discussion or a lecture. Whether discussion or lecture is used, instruction typically involves teaching six components: • The name of the strategy, • How to use the strategy, • Explicit modeling of the strategy, • Examples of when to use the strategy, • Possible adjustments to the strategy for different tasks, and • The usefulness of the strategy.

28. Phase 2: Guided practice. During this phase, students practice the strategies that they learn with support from the teacher and other students. As the guided practice phase proceeds, the teacher assumes a less active role in student strategy use. Teachers can support strategy use during this phase by: • Breaking the strategy into simplified steps, • Giving cue cards or checklists for strategy steps, • Reverting to explicit instruction and modeling as necessary, and • Allowing students to work in small groups to practice a strategy together. • Supporting students in collaborative work to learn new strategies is a critical part of guided practice

29. Phase 3: Independent practice and debriefing. Teachers can incorporate independent practice into instruction by providing opportunities for students to use strategies on their own. • These opportunities may include reading assignments as homework or in-class individual reading. • Debriefing after independent practice is important. During debriefing, teachers ask about the strategies students used while doing their independent reading assignments, how they used those strategies, and how well the strategies worked for them. A sample lesson plan for explicit comprehension strategy instruction is provided in Appendix C.

30. References Alliance for Excellence in Education. (2011). Adult literacy: Fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/files/AdolescentLiteracyFactSheet.pdf. Daniels, S. and Steineke, N. (2011). Texts and lessons for content area reading. Heinemann Publishing. Gallagher, Kelly. (2004). Deeper reading: Comprehending challenging texts, 4-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishing. National Institute for Literacy (2007). What content area teachers should know about literacy. Retrieved from http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/adolescent_literacy07.pdf Salinger, T. (2010). Addressing the crisis in adolescent literacy. American Institutes for Research. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slcp/finalcrisis.pdf