Teaching Reading in Content Area

1. Teaching Reading in Content Area

2. Purpose • CTE stresses teaching practical application of academic skills • Reading is basic life and career skill • Reading comprehension skills help students become independent, life-long learners

3. Experiences Leading to Higher Reading Scores • Reading assigned books outside of class • Reading 3+ hours per week outside of class • Writing one or two major research papers • Completing short writing assignments frequently • Making several oral presentations • Reading technical materials frequently

4. Your Role • Create appropriate environment • Be sensitive • Make students aware of need • Motivate students through interests • Assess students’ reading needs • Know what is required for entry level jobs • Identify students with possible problems • Know whether students can handle your materials

5. Your Role (cont.) • Extend • Adapt reading skills to more difficult, technical material • Develop • Teaching new, unique skills required in your area • Diagrams

6. Fusing Reading with Content • Incorporate instruction into lessons • More effective if can apply right away • Learn content and how to learn the content

7. Occupational Requirements • Review occupational analyses • Word recognition • Reading comprehension • Utilize your experiences • Written notes about work assignments • Safety signs

8. Individual Assessment • Observe performance in classroom • Inability or reluctance to read aloud • Failure to complete assignments that require reading • Inability to spell or write • Inability to follow directions • Inability to read chalkboard, bulletin board, posters • Inability to locate information in manual or catalog

9. Individual Assessment • If a student has problems, • Use results of standardized reading achievement test • Have reading specialist perform individual reading assessment • Conduct own assessment • Word recognition exercises • Comprehension exercises

10. Ability to Handle Instructional Materials • Compare student reading level to those of materials • Cloze procedure • Select samples from your materials • Delete every fifth word • Evaluate scores • 70% and above – independent reader • 40% to 70% - instructional level • 40% and below – frustration level

11. Components • Pre-reading activities • Create interest and motivate students • During-reading activities • Guide reading and comprehension process • Post-reading activities • Aid in comprehension • Review what was read

12. Pre-Reading Tactic 1 • Anticipation Guides • Select reading material & determine major ideas • Write ideas in short, clear statements • Put in format that will make students anticipate and predict what will be read (e.g., True/False) • Include brainstorming section • Discuss predictions • Assign reading • Compare and contrast predictions with reading

13. Pre-Reading Tactic 2 • Vocabulary Development through Puzzles • Crossword Puzzle • Include word bank • Encourage students to fill in without dictionary • www.adveract.com/gamestogo/crosswrd/cwmaker.htm • Word Search • Circle the word and then define it • May want them to use it in a sentence • www.wordsearchfun.com/

14. Pre-Reading Tactic 3 • K-W-L • What do you Know? • Brainstorm about topic before reading • What do you Want to learn? • Determine what students want to learn about the topic • What did you Learn? • Students identify what they learned • May also identify what they still want to learn

15. Pre-Reading Tactic 4 • Expanding My Mind • Similar to K-W-L • I already know . . . • My classmates shared with me . . . • And I learned when I read about it . . . • And then when we talked about it, I learned even more . . .

16. Pre-Reading Tactic 5 • My Final Answer • Identify a question students should answer while reading • Have students summarize answer and support • Pair up students to share answer and support • Summarize new learning from conversation • Share in small groups and summarize new learning

17. During Reading Tactic 1 • Re-Quest • Read section of text with students • Students question teacher about passage • Teacher questions students • Next segment is read & process is repeated • When enough has been read to make predictions, teacher asks prediction questions. • What do you think the rest is about? Why? • Did you find that information in the text? • What information led you to that conclusion? • Students read remaining and discussion follows

18. During-Reading Tactic 2 • SQ3R • Survey – look at title, headings, graphs, summaries • Question – turn headings into questions • Read – read text following a heading • Recite – recite answer to question • Review – review entire chapter by outlining main points (come from headings, main ideas, key words)

19. During-Reading Tactic 3 • Know/Don’t Know • Students take notes while reading, stop occasionally to note questions, and then reflect • Three columns • Column 1: Write what they didn’t know but learned • Column 2: Write what still don’t understand • Column 3: What thought knew but discovered was wrong

20. During-Reading Tactic 4 • My Personal Vocabulary • Identify vocabulary word • Use context or dictionary to define word • Copy sentence from text in which word appears • Identify clues to word’s meaning from text • Draw picture or visual represenation of meaning

21. During-Reading Tactic 5 • Putting It Together • Write main points from reading in left column • Combine first two into one statement, then the next two, and so on • After the original points are combined, have students combine the first two into one statement and continue • Keep combining until they have one single summary statement • Share summary statements

22. Post-Reading Tactic 1 • Graphic Organizers • Create several together until students get the hang of it • Several forms to choose from • Venn Diagram • Spider Map • Web • Chain • Mind Map • Sequential Thinking Model

23. Post-Reading Tactic 2 • Summarizing • Choose text • Have students summarize while looking at text • Discuss ways authors signal importance • Introductory statements, topic sentences, summary statements, underlining, italics, repetition • Students write summary to show they understand text

24. Post-Reading Tactic 3 • 2 x 2 Thinking • Identify three most important things from text • Pair up and share, then decide on three from pair • Two pairs meet and share and decide on three • Must provide reasons for choices • Groups share choices and reasons with class

25. Post-Reading Tactic 4 • Roll the Dice • Provide groups of four with four subtopics • Write subtopics in left-hand column of paper • First group member selects a topic and rolls die • Number on die indicates how many statements must be made about topic, rest of group writes them down • Continue process until all four subtopics have been covered • Allow time for all groups to share comments with class

26. Post-Reading Tactic 5 • If Once Is Good, Twice is Even Better! • Write down everything they remember from reading • Reread the information with goal of adding to list • Talk with peer about reading and write down new learnings • Discuss process: second reading should give them a deeper and broader understanding and talking with a peer should trigger additional learning

27. Improvement Strategies • Teach technical vocabulary • Provide practical reading knowledge & tips • Use reading games • Introduce reading assignments • Supplement reading assignments • Individualize reading help • Provide practice and reinforcement

28. Teach Technical Vocabulary(new, essential, and specialized) • Definitions – oral or written; glossary • Context – need to be taught how to use this • Examples – provide examples of how used • Common equivalents – common terms • Real objects, models, pictures – show the object • Demonstrations – show the action or procedure

29. Rules for Introducing Vocabulary • Present word orally and in writing • Helps fix sound and spelling in mind • Teach the meaning • Ensure everyone understands • Use the word as often as possible • Ask questions requiring its use • Devise some permanent, visible reminder • Label objects, post vocabulary list, create posters

30. Context Clues • Definition – means, is, called, termed • Examples – like, such as, for example • Modifiers – often predicate adjectives • Restatement – that is, in other words, what this means, to put it another way • Inference – reading between the lines • Connections – repetition of key words or use of connecting words indicate comparison/contrast

31. Context Clues Exercises • Select sample sentences from reading • Copy sentences and highlight word to define • Design procedure to guide students • Identify any signal words • Point out clue section of sentence • Analyze clue section to identify possible meanings • List possible meanings from which students can select

32. Structural Analysis • Root – base or fundamental part of word • Prefix – comes before root • Suffix – comes after root • Transported – port=to carry, trans=across, ed=past • Transportation = ation=noun; act of transporting

33. Structural Analysis Exercise • Provide a list of prefixes, roots, and suffixes along with their definitions • Provide a list of terms using the prefixes, roots, and suffixes provided • Have students write literal translations • Have students look up word and write dictionary definition • Compare literal and actual definitions

34. Oral Vocabulary Instruction • Discussions may lead students to organize knowledge • Write word on board (traction) • Have students find root word • List other words students come up with that contain root (attract, detract, extract, contract) • Have students analyze meanings of words

35. Practical Reading Knowledge & Tips • Point out clues about what is important • New vocabulary may be underlined or in bold • New vocabulary may be found in margin • List of new vocabulary may be found at beginning or end of chapter • Mention other devices for highlighting key points • Introduction or summary sections • Chapter titles and subheadings

36. Practical Reading Knowledge & Tips • Reading process • Point to what they read as they read • Underline important points in materials • Preview skimming • Provides framework for organizing information • Rapid reading of material to pick out important points • Read carefully, absorbing the information

37. Use Reading Games • Crossword puzzle - practice vocabulary • Word search - word recognition and spelling • Can have students match terms with definitions first • Word maze – no list provided, find words on own • Word scramble – word recognition and spelling • Can have puzzle using numbers to go with it • Directions game – begin with one word and follow directions to end with another word • Analogies – two pairs of words with similar relationships

38. Introduce Reading Assignments • What they are reading • Broad, general picture of particular topic or detailed treatment of one point • Retain main points and important details or lots of minor details • Why they are reading the assignment • How does it fit into what they are learning • How does it fit into the world of work

39. Supplement Reading Assignments • Audiotapes – listen while reading • Videotape process described in reading • Illustrations of what they are reading • Vocabulary sections – present definitions and illustrations of new and important vocabulary • Flash cards – vocabulary, vocabulary plus pictures, pictures on front and vocabulary on back • Peer teaching – pair stronger & weaker readers

40. Individualize Reading Help • Do not require students to perform additional activities that are not needed • Group students with similar abilities together and provide them with supplemental materials • Make sure it doesn’t seem like more work

41. Provide Practice & Reinforcement • Provide reading materials on students’ interests • Encourage students to use comprehension activities at end of chapter • Add written notes or questions to end of reading assignment to help students focus

42. Resources • Beers, S., & Howell, L. (2003). Reading strategies for the content areas. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. • Beers, S., & Howell, L. (2005). Reading strategies for the content areas: Volume II. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. • Canary, A. J. (2001). The importance of reading in family and consumer sciences. Ellensburg, WA: Family and Consumer Sciences Education Association. • Roe, B. D., Stoodt, B. D., & Burns, P. C. (1983). Secondary school reading instruction: The content areas. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.