The Reading-Writing Connection: Preparing GED Grads for College Coursework

1. The Reading-Writing Connection: Preparing GED Grads for College Coursework Sally S. Gabb Reading Skills Specialist Bristol Community College Sally.Gabb@bristolcc.edu

3. The Reading-Writing ConnectionNCTN conference Nov. 9, 2012 Agenda: I - Introduction: The path to college level reading & writing II - Testing & placement III - Reading: comparative standards IV – Reading: comparative instruction V - Writing: comparative standards VI - Writing: comparative instruction VII - Connecting Reading & Writing VII - Motivation & engagement

4. The Reading-Writing Connection • “Reading and writing are a natural pair. Pre-writing requires reading for ideas; analyzing text requires writing. Research shows that this combination has potential to contribute in powerful ways to thinking.” • Dr. Lana Myers, associate professor of English, Lone Star College, Houston, TX

5. What are your strongest memories about the following: • Reading assignments during your first year in college • Writing assignments during your first year in college

6. The Reading-Writing Connection Placement testing: Don’t confuse the road with the destination! • Placement tests may or may not provide an accurate picture of student reading & writing skills • Prepare students for placement tests with practice tests • Primary placement instruments: COMPASS; ACCUPLACER

7. The Reading-Writing Connection College Placement Practice Tests: http://www.compass-test-practice.com/ http://www.collegeboard.com http://www.google.com http://www.swccd.edu/~asc/

8. The Reading-Writing Connection The ACCUPLACER Reading Placement: Adaptive test: increases in difficulty as test taker succeeds: higher levels = higher scores Test content: vocabulary, text structure (main idea, details, etc.), sentence relationships (patterns of organization transition words), inference

9. The Reading-Writing Connection Reading for Transition to College & Career: • Standards for mastery: • GED passage vs. college readiness: ABE ELA framesworks: identify GED level mastery www.doe.mass.edu/acls/frameworks/ELA.doc College reading & writing standards (College Board) www.google.com

10. The Reading-Writing Connection Reading for Transition to College & Career: Teachers who are alert to the complex interactions among these elements: • engagement • reading skill • reading task • text are better equipped to differentiate their instructional strategies to help all students become effective readers.

11. The Reading-Writing Connection Reading skills for college: • Vocabulary: knowledge and strategies • Three stages of the reading process • Connecting to prior knowledge (schema) • Basic comprehension skills/ strategies • Identify the author’s purpose/intended audience

12. Connecting new information to existing knowledge builds the web of knowing that enables us to retain information in our long term memory.

13. Reading skills for college: • Mood, tone, figures of speech • Analysis: Fiction/ non fiction; Fact or opinion? • Reading to learn: memory strategies • Textbook strategies

14. The Reading-Writing Connection • Vocabulary: tools for college reading and writing • http://www.swccd.edu • http://www.quizlet.com

15. Basic Comprehension Strategies: • Three stages of the reading process – reading to comprehend and learn from text • Before you start reading • While you read • After you read

16. Before you read: • Identify topic • Skim • Connect with prior knowledge • Predict & question

17. While you read: • Self monitor: do I understand • Question: am I finding answers

18. After you read: • Did I answer my questions? • What new questions did I find • What is the author telling me about the topic?

19. Textbook reading: Get to know your textbook!! http://faculty.bucks.edu/specpop/reading.htm

20. The Reading-Writing Connection Writing for Transition to College & Career: • Writing is a recursive process. • Experienced writers do not usually follow a linear progression of stages as they compose a text • Experienced writers are flexible in how they approach a writing situation • Experienced writers draw on a variety of strategies to carry out and manage the numerous complex tasks involved in composing • There are no set formulas for making these decisions

21. The Reading-Writing Connection • Learning to write is hard work!! • To manage these processes independently, novice writers require: • effective instruction • good feedback • clear models

22. The Reading-Writing Connection • To develop, novice writers must: • learn and practice effective writing strategies • receive regular feedback on their writing • develop a repertoire of strategies to call upon.

24. While you read:

25. The Reading-Writing Connection • text2mindmap pdf - adobe reader • http://www.text2mindmap.com/

26. The Reading-Writing Connection Engaging students in reading: • Self selected reading • Book club activities • Personal reading log

27. The Reading-Writing Connection Engaging students in reading & writing: Common reading experience: the BCC OneBook • Integration into content • Speakers/ youtube film

28. The Reading-Writing Connection • Engaging students in writing: • Dialogue journals • Current events summaries • Class newspaper • Group reports/ research

29. The Reading-Writing Connection • READ • READ • READ • WRITE • WRITE • WRITE

30. The Reading-Writing Connection • "The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education." • Ralph Waldo Emerson