LITERACY IN THE CLASSROOMRAMS In-service , October 12, 2009
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Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas?
Students do not have the skills to read and comprehend content-based text.
Skills needed depend on the content and text.
Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas?
If all teachers provide reading
opportunities for students,
students will be better prepared
to meet identified standards in
all areas.
Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas?
Background knowledge and
content provide an essential link
between what students
understand and what they read.
Why Is Writing Important in the Content Areas?
In combined writing and reading
instruction, learners engage in a
greater society of experiences that
lead to better reasoning and higher-
level thinking than is achieved with
either process alone.
Why Is Writing Important in the Content Area? Thinking is a critical part of
meaning construction
Meaning construction through reading and writing will produce better thinkers.
Why Is Writing Important in the Content Area? 95% of what you are teaching
today, your students will forget within 6 months.
If kids WRITE something about what they have just learned, students will retain 90% of what you teach.
Reflection on Literacy
“This is the point behind the point about literacy. What matters, in our age, is not just that people read for information, or for amusement, or for whatever else the television screen and computer terminal can alternately provide. It is that they read for wisdom, for depth, for a conscious acquaintance with the values and judgments of great thinkers thinking greatly. The tragedy of illiteracy – and the even greater waste of alliteracy, involving those who know how to read seriously but don’t – is that it abandons the accumulated wisdom of the ages. It places fine writing in the hands of fewer and fewer interpreters, whose translations and commentaries become progressively oversimplified – and whose audience, increasingly unable to think for itself, grows more and more susceptible to the manipulations of the elite. “Are we headed, then, backwards into the pre-print attitudes of the Middle Ages, when the literate few ruled the illiterate many? Our sense of democracy should rise in rebellion at such a notion. To avert such backsliding, [our educational focus] must be given over to two things: training people how to read and teaching them why they should want to read…”
By Rushworth Kidder
Penn Literacy Network
Explore strategies and concepts for increasing student reading and writing proficiency.
Penn Literacy Network
5 Critical Experiences Transacting with Text Composing Texts Extending Reading and Writing Investigating Language Learning to Learn
Penn Literacy Network
4 lenses for Looking at the Curriculum Meaning centered Social Language Based Human
The Four Lenses
Learning
What does a PLN classroom look like?
Social Lens
Whose voice is heard in the classroom?
Are students given opportunity to
share?
Do they work with peers to share/refine
thinking?
What does a PLN classroom look like?
Language-Based Lens
Are students reading/writing for
various purposes?
Are students generating original text?
What does a PLN classroom look like?
Meaning-Based Lens
Can students find meaning in material?
Are they able to connect the topic with
their own lives?
What does a PLN classroom look like?
Human Lens
Each student has a chance to respond
in a way that will be unique??
Theme = Student as ACTIVE Learner If the teacher is doing all the work,
you’re working too hard!
Learning is infinite (teacher student).
Teacher should model learning.
Do your students…
know why they are being asked to read a given text?
apply prior knowledge and experience to the reading?
look for typographic and text structure cues to help them identify critical elements?
Do your students…
ask themselves questions while they are reading?
exhibit vocabulary to enable them to concentrate on ideas and concepts in the reading?
appear engaged rather than bored during reading assignments?
An Effective Model of Engagement
Independent Activity
Whole Group, Mini
lesson, lecture, etc. Independe
nt or Small Group
Whole Class
Independent Activity
Pair Share
Discussion Strategies
Bloom's Taxonomy Questioning
Creative Debate
Discussion Groups
Discussion Web
Inferential Strategy
Intra-Act
Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)
Radio Reading
Reciprocal Questioning (ReQuest)
Seed Discussion
Think Pair Share
Active Reading Strategies
Anticipation/Reaction Guide
Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
Embedded Questions
Jot-Charting
Know/Want to Know/Learned (KWL)
Predict/Locate/Add/Note (PLAN)
Pre-Reading Plan (PreP)
Problematic Situation
Reciprocal Teaching
Response Journal
Strategy Log
Summarizing
Survey/Question/Read/Recite/Review (SQ3R)
Think Aloud
Three-Level Guide
Visual Imagery
Vocabulary Strategies
Concept Definition Mapping
Contextual Redefinition
Dictionary Game
Frayer Model
List/Group/Label
Possible Sentences
Rivet
Semantic Feature Analysis
Semantic Webbing
Stephens Vocabulary Elaboration Strategy (SVES)
Structured Notes
Student VOC Strategy
Word Analogies
Word Sort
Organization Strategies
Charting Text Structure
CONCEPT Diagram
Content Frame
Graphic Organizer
Idea-Map
ORDER
Proposition/Support Outline
Record/Edit/Synthesize/Think (REST)
Two-Column Notes
Models for Human Learning
“Life skills today mean reading critically, applying
knowledge,
asking questions, finding answers, and knowing what to do
with what we find. It is communicating – by spoken word,
written word, and electronic message. It’s knowing how to
sort out the important from the unimportant, the significant
from the insignificant, what’s true from what’s not. It’s
having
the ability to think for yourself rather than having someone
do it for you – and there are many who are happy to do so,
from the salesman to the politician…
Models for Human Learning
“We must help them be ready – by model, by practice, by
design. They need to know how to seek, to find, and to use
for themselves before they leave us. It has to be our goal
and our practice.”
Mel Levine 2002
Transacting with the Text builds Effective Learners!
Talking TO the text+ Talking ABOUT the text
_______________________
= Ownership of the text
MEANING + LANGUAGE + SOCIAL + HUMAN
Keys to Developing Successful Readers
MotivationPurpose
HabitReflectionSharing
ConnectingStrategiesRe-readingChunking
Choice
Final Thoughts
“Meaning doesn’t arrive because we have highlighted text or used sticky notes or written the right words on a comprehension worksheet. Meaning arrives because we are purposefully engaged in thinking while we read.”
Cris TovaniDo I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12. (2004)
To participate fully in society and the workplace in 2020, citizens will need powerful
literacy abilities that until now have been achieved by only a
small percentage of the population.
National Council on Teachers of English Standards for the English Language Arts
Good Resources
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/
http://www.readwritethink.org/