The students who get lost in our classrooms are the ones who take their homework seriously but lack the study skills to earn the highest grades for their efforts. When we consider the reading skills that are specific to each content area, it is no longer acceptable for us to say that high school teachers don’t need to teach reading. A startling statistic is found in a report by the National Institute for Literacy: “Despite the call for today’s adolescents to achieve higher levels of literacy than previous generations, approximately 8.7 million fourth through 12th grade students struggle with the reading and writing tasks that are required of them in school.” (Kamil) The research on adolescent literacy is plentiful though largely invisible in our classrooms. (Alliance for Excellent Education, Carnegie Corporation, Phelps) In my work with teachers, I often find that teacher preparation programs do not require a course in content area literacy. As a result, teachers do not model or provide the scaffolding that would help many hardworking, good students to achieve at a higher level.
Literacy is about more than just adequately decoding words with acceptable comprehension on a formal or informal assessment. Teaching our students the skills that allow them to be literate strategic readers and monitors of their own comprehension is essential in our college preparatory schools. My focus is on the student who completes the reading assignment in every content area yet continually fails the reading quiz or blankly says, “I don’t know,” when the teacher asks a question. We offer many opportunities for struggling readers, some more effective than others, but few for the hard worker who just hasn’t been taught how good readers interact with text. Recent brain research has helped us to refine our arsenal of tools to help the majority of students in our classrooms. For instance, we know that “Metacognition is the ability to think about and to control [our] thinking processes before, during, and after reading. Students who have learned metacognitive skills can plan and monitor their comprehension, adapting and modifying their reading accordingly.” (Billmeyer) Our understanding of the interactive model of reading was solidified by Marilyn Adams in 1998, though the idea was revolutionary when introduced by Rumelhart in 1975. Adams has refined the model of interactive reading and provides a thorough explanation of how the brain works with text. Understanding reading as an interactive process and knowing how the brain functions should change the way we teach.
Students carry lots of different books, but not all of them are organized the same way to provide the same tools to help students understand the content. Spending part of a class period early in the year when the textbook is introduced helps students to use the book in a strategic manner. A great way to do this is a one-page set of questions that requires students to use and identify the tools in the text (i.e., charts, graphs, glossary, index, legend on a map, caption on a picture, bold face type for new words, etc.) This exercise can be structured as a race for individuals or teams. After spending 10-15 minutes, the teacher can then refer to the tools in the text by name during class and in context reinforce how to use them effectively.
I tell my students that I don’t want them to work harder, I want them to work smarter. Even the less motivated students listen when I explain what I mean. Students need a purpose for reading. When they know before the assignment is given why they are reading and what they should know when they finish, they will be able to structure their notes and organize their thinking in meaningful ways. Thinking about the topic before reading is essential to activating the schema needed to effectively interact with the text. Your brain functions like a filing cabinet. When we activate prior knowledge we open the file drawer and find the folder in which that new information will be filed. When reading without this step, we are fumbling to get the drawer open and start a new folder well into the reading selection. It’s no wonder we aren’t sure what we read and why it matters. Our goal should be to give our students a purpose for their reading and motivation to read. Activating prior knowledge prepares students for the assignment we are giving. The norm for many high school classes is that the teacher assigns reading without any explanation or discussion and the students read it to prepare for class the next day. Some of these students read as assigned yet fail the reading quiz. Preparing our students for the assignment can prevent this discouraging scenario. There are many books that provide tools for teachers as they plan pre-reading activities to prepare students for effective reading. I have included some of these books in the references section. Some of my students’ favorite activities follow.
The traditional KWL has three columns with the headings: What I Know, What I Want to Learn, What I Learned. This chart is an effective tool for activating prior knowledge. Helping students think about what they already know, or think they know, provides useful information for teachers. One of our tasks is reminding students that learning is about reorganizing our schema to include new information, which sometimes means that what we thought we knew isn’t correct. I frequently write notes next to the What I Know column saying, “Do you think this is true?” The What I Want to Know column kindles the curiosity that helps to provide motivation and What I Learned blocks ensure that students think about what they are reading. Adding an additional column where students tell me what they still want to learn serves as a springboard to reports or projects that captivate students because their voices were heard. Janet Allen has collected a number of ideas for content area teachers in a book that offers black-line masters that teachers can use in the classroom. Another tool that helps students get started with a reading assignment is a list of four or five true or false statements, referred to in the literature as “Anticipation Guides.” Students predict whether the statement is true or false. At the end of the reading they can go back and correct their answers and make the false statements true.
I like to have students keep a journal for each chapter we complete in my geography class. The first entry is to write three things you know about the topic and then three questions you would like to answer. This activates their thinking and also helps me gauge the topics they are interested in learning about. I continue the journal throughout the unit by asking them to write three things they learned in the previous class or three questions from the previous material. This helps me identify students who did not understand the lesson and correct their misunderstanding long before a test. In one instance when checking a journal, I found a student had understood a lesson totally backwards. We were able to go through the PowerPoint and correct the error, ensuring comprehension prior to a test. This same tool can provide an opportunity for reflection and processing following the lesson. I have found that exam blue books are about the right size for this activity and they can be punched and put into student notebooks at the end of the unit.
When the reading assignment is given, students need to know what they are expected to do with the content. One effective tool that students can use is a graphic organizer that is designed around the organizational structure of the text. In history, chronological organization is effective; science texts often use cause and effect organization. There are many websites and computer programs, such as Inspiration, that can be used in the classroom to help teachers create appropriate graphic organizers.
We know that working memory only holds about four chunks of information at a time; helping students organize their reading into categories will enable them to retain more information. Most of my students don’t do this intuitively. Modeling and instruction are needed in order to make it automatic. I encourage students to write a summary of each section they read. Only three or four sentences ensure that students not only read the section but comprehended it at a level that allows them to put it into their own words. This replaces a quiz and saves time for more explicit instruction. Formative assessment that allows us to re-teach and review material that students haven’t understood strengthens our teaching and ensures success for our students. When the same formative assessment provides opportunities for students to reflect on what they have read or learned in class, it provides a double benefit. Giving students a chance to connect new learning to previous learning can also be structured into these short, formative assessment strategies. Strategic readers monitor their own comprehension and we need to provide students with tools and strategies that teach them how.
Our students are masters at asking, “Is this on the test?” Effective instruction that causes curiosity and ensures that tests are not a mystery can eliminate this annoying question. Teachers who answer such a question with, “Everything’s on the test,” only exacerbate the problem, making it difficult for students to sort and prioritize information as well as study for effective recall. Exceptional teachers provide effective study guides to help students focus their review in preparation for a test. I love to see great teachers who work with students to write the review sheet. If the instructional purpose has been clear and formative assessment focused, students will know what is important and be able to design their own review guide. This is real preparation for college where professors seldom provide extensive review materials. Contrary to those who say, “I don’t have time for this,” teaching students to be strategic readers and study strategists is the mission of college preparatory programs.
I encourage you to read The Essential Cognitive Backpack, by Mel Levine. He reminds us that preparing students for college means giving them tools for success, which includes tools to be actively engaged in the classroom.
The strategies that I have presented will help us teach our students what a “vibrating” mind feels like so that they are prepared to control their own learning. Great teaching is effective for all students, not just the forgotten majority. Active thinking will make your classroom an engaging place where students are motivated to learn and teaching is a pleasure.
Bibliography
Adams, M. Beginning to read. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
Allen, Janet. Tools for teaching content literacy. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2004.
Alliance for Excellent Education. How to know a good adolescent literacy program when you see one: quality criteria to consider. NY: Alliance for Excellent Education, 2004.
—. Reading Next. NY: Carnegie Corporation, 2004.
Atwell, Nancie. In the Middle, 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
Billmeyer, Rachel and Barton, Mary Lee. Teaching reading in the content areas: If not me then who? Aurora, CO: Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory, 1998.
Buehl, Douglas. Classroom strategies for interactive learning. Newark, DE: Inernational Reading Association, 2001.
Carnegie Corporation. Time to act. NY: Carnegie Corporation, 2010.
Ellery, Varerie. Creating strategic readers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2005.
Kamil, M. Adolescents and literacy: reading for the 21st century. Washington,DC: Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003.
Levine, M. "The essential cognitive backpack." Educational Leadership April 2007: 17-22.
Phelps, Stephen. Ten years of research on adolescent literacy, 1994-2004: A review. Naperville, IL: Learning Points Associates, 2005.
Rumelhart, D. Toward an interactive model of reading. San Diego, CA: University of California, 1975.
Vacca, R. and Vacca, J. Content area reading. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2008.
Willis, Judy. Research-Based strategies to ignite student learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006.