Module One: How can we build content literacy in an aliterate culture?
Objectives
During this module you will- Become familiar with the course, including the Discussion Board, texts, and fellow course participants.
- Assess your personal reading habits and interests.
- Identify and discuss the effective and ineffective reading behaviors of your students.
- Become familiar with the etextbooks and accompanying technology.
Introduction — Welcome to the Class
In my early career as a middle school teacher, I worked with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students as a language arts and reading teacher in the classroom. In those days, students were not pulled out for Title I programs so I was expected to differentiate for each student that struggled in reading.
My team developed a system of dividing the students by ability and through the ability grouping we were able to target the skills needed for literacy. Every twelve weeks, students rotated among our team. Each team member focused on direct teaching activities as well as different genres, such as short stories, novels, and so on.
We believed that the students had the basic reading skills that were needed, and thus we provided additional support instruction for literature, speaking, and writing skills. Unfortunately, this instruction neither remediated reading skills nor prepared students for successful reading in other content areas.
Although their reading scores sky-rocketed on the California Test of Basic Skills, little to no transfer was shown in the content areas.
Fortunately, my view of what students needed as secondary readers changed as I continued my years as an instructor. Through graduate coursework and leadership from district personnel, I discovered that I was providing students many opportunities to read and to evaluate literature, but I was not providing my students the skills they needed to become more successful readers in my classroom and in other contents.
Initially, the change in instruction included study skills, like note taking and paraphrasing, and then extended to leveled materials and vocabulary instruction.
However, many of us noticed that even though we were providing more reading instruction to secondary students, we weren’t seeing the transfer and success in other content reading that we expected. What we discovered, and what the research supports, is that learning a reading skill in one class did not mean that students would be able to transfer that learning to a new setting that involved different reading experiences in different contents.
The fact that I taught a skill or strategy in my reading course did not help students transfer that skill or strategy to reading done in a science or social studies classroom. The message was clear: content teachers must provide the instruction that students need to be successful with the unique reading demands of that content.
Most content area teachers, those individuals teaching content other than reading, have limited training in recognizing and assisting struggling readers. Yet, all of us are interested in finding strategies that will enhance the probability that our students will retain important information from the content we teach.
Perhaps, “retention” is a useful way to define content reading comprehension. We want students to retain or remember and use the content we have chosen to teach them.
The other major discovery I made was also supported by research: the students who most needed to be reading were the students not doing the reading. Students who did not enjoy reading did not read if there was any way to avoid it.
The vicious cycle continued then with being a poor reader, not reading, and continuing to be a poor reader. For someone who loves to read, I could not imagine that students would choose to never open a book for enjoyment.
These two discoveries – students who find no pleasure in reading and choose not to read and the difficulty of transfer of reading skills across contents – led me to continue to explore what research and experts offer as solutions to these dilemmas. I believe strongly that we all need to teach our students how be successful learners in our content.
In the 21st century, an even bigger problem is that children are beginning kindergarten as functionally illiterate. What does that mean?
Due to many parents both working and so much exposure to technology with programs (iPads, etc.) that will keep children busy, many PK students are not exposed to the printed word as much as in the past.
Many PK children are not being read to and are not made aware of sound of letters and language. Webster (2015) defines this: “Functional illiteracy is reading and writing skills that are inadequate "to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level."
The challenges are how to motivate elementary and young adults to not only enjoy reading, but to also understand what they are reading. Because, as students proceed through middle school and high school, the “Reading” period disappears, yet the need to comprehend and understand does not.
Think of this content reading course as a course about strategies and procedures designed to enhance the probability that your students will read and retain more of the subject content presented outside of the "Reading" period.
Our goal is to improve the chances that not only will content retention improve, but overall student reading ability will also increase. When students find that they can be successful readers, it is more likely that they will willingly read more.
Let's get started.
We begin by introducing ourselves and becoming acclimated to our primary communication source – the Discussion Board.
Feel free to e-mail me at crumm@uwstout.edu with questions or comments.
Mary Beth Crum - Instructor
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Telephone: (847) 259-5513