Reading & Learning in the Content Areas

Reading & Learning in the Content Areas Presented by Ginger Kowalko Educational Consultant

Today’s Outcomes • Confirm • Contribute • Create

Secondary Literacy Ideally, secondary literacy would focus solely on “. . . the core of reading: comprehension, learning while reading, reading in the content areas, and reading in the service of secondary or higher education, of employability, of citizenship.” Reading Next, 2004, p. 1

“. . . as many as one out of every ten adolescents has serious difficulties in identifying words.” Curtis and Longo, 1999. Adolescents and Literacy: Reading for the 21st Century, p. 8

Reading Activity

Directions for test administrator Have your partner read the passage as written. Circle all errors as your partner reads, but do not correct. When your partner is done, take their copy away and ask the questions. Calculate your partner’s accuracy on the first paragraph (100 words) though they should read the entire passage. Calculate your partner’s accuracy on the questions.

Accuracy • Independent – 98% to 100% • Instructional – 95% to 98% • Frustrational – Below 95% • To be successful on Oregon’s Reading & Literature Assessment, students needed to be at the independent level

Comprehension RequiresCalifornia Reading & Literature Project/ AB 1086 Training Manual Word Recognition Speed & Accuracy Language Comprehension Vocabulary, syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics Knowledge of Text Structures Narration, exposition, poetry, other Comprehension Strategies Monitoring during reading, using “fix-up” strategies, coping with task requirements Background Knowledge Content and language Motivation and Attention Needs, purposes, and intentions for comprehending

“Low achievement and problem behaviors go hand in hand” Kauffman, 1997 p.247

Cycle of Academic and Behavioral FailureKent McIntosh, 2006 Teacher presents student with grade level academic task Student’s academic skills do not improve Student engages in problem behavior Student escapes academic task Teacher removes academic task or removes student

Academic Behavioral • Intensive, Individual Interventions • Individual Students • Assessment-based • High Intensity • Intensive, Individual Interventions • Individual Students • Assessment-based • Intense, durable procedures • Targeted Group Interventions • Some students (at-risk) • High efficiency • Rapid response • Targeted Group Interventions • Some students (at-risk) • High efficiency • Rapid response • Universal Interventions • All students • Preventive, proactive • Universal Interventions • All settings, all students • Preventive, proactive Multi-Tier Model 1-5% 1-5% 5-10% 5-10% 80-90% 80-90%

With hocked gems financing him, our hero bravely defied all scornful laughterthat tried to prevent his scheme. “Your eyes deceived” he had said. “An egg not a table correctly typifies this unexplored planet.” Now three sturdy sisters sought proof. Forging along sometimes throughcalm vastness, yet more often over turbulent peaks and valleys.Day became weeks as many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge. At last from somewhere, welcomed winged creatures appeared signifying momentous success. From Subjects Matter, Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading, Daniels & Zemelman, Heinemann Publishing, 2004, p.5

What does the research say?

Part One: Improving Academic Literacy Instruction for Students in Grades 4-12Three Sections • Improving Literacy-Related Instruction in the Content Areas • Using Interventions with Students Below Grade Level • Supporting Literacy Development for English Language Learners

Improving Literacy-Related Instruction in the Content Area 1. Provide explicit instruction and supportive practice in the use of effective comprehension strategies throughout the school day • Increase the amount and quality of open, sustained discussion of reading content • Set and maintain high standards for text, conversation, questions and vocabulary • Increase students’ motivation and engagement with reading • Teach essential content knowledge so that all students master critical concepts

IES Practice GuideRecommendations & Levels of Evidence • Provide explicit vocabulary instruction. STRONG • Provide direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction. STRONG • Provide opportunities for extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation. MODERATE • Increase student motivation and engagement in literacy learning. MODERATE • Make available intensive and individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by trained specialists. STRONG

TWO PRONG APPROACH READING INSTRUCTION CONTENT LITERACY

A comprehensive literacy solution for middle and high schools Reading teachers must teach them basic and advanced reading skills as intensively and skillfully as the school can manage. Content area teachers must be part of the solution Torgesen 2006

Content Literacy Activity What content literacy strategies do you know about and/or use? • Think about and write your response 2. Pair with partner 3. Share with partner then with whole group

déjà vu? Why initiatives may fail to gain traction: • Reliance on Train & Hope • No Systematic Approach with Respect to • Outcomes • Data • Practices • Supports • No Sustainability

Professional Development“Train & Hope”

OUTCOMES Supports for Effective Implementation Data for Decision Making SUPPORTS DATA PRACTICES Practices for Student Success Adapted From: Horner & Sugai

A Systems Approach Results of an effective systems approach • A common vision Embraced by members of the organization and serves as the basis for decision making and action planning. • A common language A means for describing its vision, actions and operations so that communications are informative, efficient, effective and relevant. • A common experience A set of actions, routines, procedures, operations, etc., that are universally practiced and experienced by all members of the organization. Horner & Sugai

“Sustainability does not simply mean whether something will last. It addresses how particular initiatives can be developed without compromising the development of others in the surrounding environment now and in the future.”(Fullan, 2005)

Organizing Content Literacy Strategies for Sustainability • Select those with research/evidence basis • Select those which are • Effective • Efficient • Relevant

Provide all students access to the content being taught Ensure opportunity to reinforce content literacy and reading skills Increase the amount students receive in reading instruction without taking away from content Academic Content Competence: Every Student Succeeding (ACCESS) • Access ACCESS ACCESS

ACCESS Toolkit • Academic • Content • Competence: • Every • Student • Succeeding

Access for ALL Students • Special Education • English Language Learners • Striving Readers • At-Risk Learners

ACCESS “All students, regardless of their personal characteristics, backgrounds, or physical challenges, must have opportunities to study – and support to learn […]. Equity does not mean that every student should receive identical instruction; instead, it demands that reasonable and appropriate accommodations be made as needed to promote access and attainment for all students.” EDThoughts: What We Know About Mathematics Teaching and Learning 2002 McRel

A Framework Based on Research Combines research on: • Before/During/After Reading Strategies • Big Ideas of Reading • Decoding (phonemic awareness and phonics) • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension

Reading Strategies Before Reading • Previewing • Activating Prior Knowledge • Developing Word Power • Learning High-Utility Words • Understanding Relationships During Reading • Increasing Thinking and Memory Skills • Understanding Relationships • Improving Passage Reading After Reading • Answering Comprehension Question • Summarizing From ACCESS Toolkit, Mary M. Gleason, Ginger Kowalko & Lori Rae Smith, 2008

ACCESS Toolkit techniques feature 1. Explicit Instruction which: • is teacher directed • relies on clear explanations • guides student use (“I do it, we do it, you do it”) • precedes application activities 2. Active Engagement which: • requires written responses and/or oral responses (individual, choral and/or with a partner)

Transportable & Transparent • Transportable = using strategies learned in one class to comprehend in another • Transparent = strategies that become part of a student’s thinking and automatically applied • “When strategies are transportable and transparent, students focus more on the content being taught than on how they are being taught.” Ivy & Fisher, Creating Literacy Rich Schools for Adolescents, ASCD, 2006

De coding “No comprehension strategies are powerful enough to compensate for not being able to read the words within a text.” Archer, Gleason, Vachon, 2003

From the 5th grade on, students encounter approximately 10,000 words per year that they have never previously encountered in print. Nagy and Anderson, 1984 • The meaning of content-area passages is almost totally carried by the multisyllabic words. Archer, Gleason and Vachon, 2003

Inadequate word recognition skills are thought to be the most common and debilitating source of reading challenges. Adams, 1990, Share and Stanovich, 1995 • Word recognition is the foundation for vocabulary and comprehension. Stanovich, 1996

Decoding Successful Readers • Read multisyllabic words and use strategies to figure out unknown words • Make connections between letter patterns and sounds and use this understanding to read words • Break unknown words into syllables during reading • Use word analysis strategies to break difficult or long words into meaningful parts such as inflectional endings, prefixes, suffixes, and roots Struggling Readers • May read single-syllable words effortlessly but have difficulty decoding longer multisyllabic words • May lack knowledge of the ways in which sounds map to print • Have difficulty breaking words into syllables • Often do not use word analysis strategies to break words into syllables From Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers, A Practice Brief, Center on Instruction, 2008

Decoding Techniques • Working With Words • Working with Word Families

Fluency • Accuracy • Rate • Expression

FLUENCY What is fluency? Accuracy + Rate + Expression Why is it important for secondary students? Reading demands increase Large quantities of text to read for assignments

What’s the goal of fluency instruction? • Comprehension • Increased vocabulary • Increased background knowledge • Improved oral retell skills • How do content teachers help students develop fluency? • Effective strategies include: • Repeated Reading • Passage Reading • Partner Reading • Cloze Reading • Choral Reading

Fluency Successful Readers • Read 100-160 words per minute (at the middle school level) depending on the nature and difficulty of the text • Decode words accurately and automatically • Group words into meaningful chunks and phrases • Read with expression • Combine multiple tasks while reading (e.g., decoding, phrasing, understanding and interpreting) Struggling Readers • Read slowly and laboriously • May continue to struggle with decoding or may decode correctly but slowly • May not pause at punctuation or recognize phrases • Often lack voice or articulation of emotion while reading • May lack proficiency in individual skills that result in dysfluent reading and limit comprehension From Effective Instruction for Adolescent Struggling Readers, A Practice Brief, Center on Instruction, 2008

Reading & Learning in the Content Areas