Reading Instruction: It's Everyone's Job
Whether you teach science or literature, the Iowa Core Curriculum makes it very clear that it's every teacher's responsibility to give students literacy instruction. You can go to the following link to download the literacy standards for 6-12 History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. There are three basic components to literacy instruction: comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary. Some ideas you can use in your classroom can be found below. If you have even more ideas you'd like to share, please go to the subpage, Idea Swap and share.
Comprehension Instruction
Comprehension is a student's ability to process and understand what they are reading, which is vital to understanding content in the classroom. Below are some strategies that might be helpful to you in increasing comprehension:
- Use QAR - An oldie but a goodie back from Nevada's CRISS strategies era is Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR) instruction. This strategy involves helping students understand the purpose of each kind of question that a teacher asks by categorizing questions into four types, which are shown below. Teachers can help students by labeling questions for homework assignments with the four categories or having students label the types of questions. The image below can be printed into bookmarks for students so they have a reminder to use QAR as they are reading.
- Differentiate texts. We all know that our students come in all shapes and sizes, so we differentiate for them based on their needs. Just one more element of differentiation is to have texts available to them at different reading levels so students can find something that they can read and understand, or at least help them understand, the content you're having them read. "Debra Schneider, a history teacher at Merrill West High School in Tracy, Calif., said she uses picture books to supplement the U.S. history curriculum for her 11th graders because such books communicate a lot of basic information in a concise way" (Zehr, 2010).
You can contact the AEA to get additional texts for your room.
Below is an article with some recommendations of Spanish books for your Spanish-speaking students just to get them engaged in reading in the first place.
- Use pre-reading strategies to get students ready to read. Below is an example of just one of many pre-reading activities. I tried this one just this school year with my Strategies in Comprehension class before we read the historical fiction novel, Daniel Half-Human by David Chotjewitz. I really wanted to figure out a way to get my students to understand a text about the Holocaust that was told from a different perspective than they typically encounter in school. I thought students might struggle to understand the text if I didn't get them ready because the narrator of the story is someone who is pro-Nazi and wants to join the Hitler Jugend.
- Give students practice answering comprehension questions. Just like math teachers assign practice problems, teachers need to give students practice in comprehension. One resource I found valuable to use with my Strategies in Comprehension class for practicing answering comprehension questions is ReadTheory.org. On this site, you can set up your class and then have students take reading comprehension quizzes on it. The site gives students a baseline and then adjusts the quizzes to their reading levels. It also gives you different options to use to chart their progress. The best part is the site is completely free to use.
Fluency Instruction
According to the dictionary, fluency is the ability to read with ease. While it's not likely you will have students reading out loud often in your classrooms, it is important that you help students build basic fluency skills. In a study done by Rasinski, Padak, McKeon, Wilfong, Friedauer, & Heim (2005), they found that at the end of the 9th grade year, freshmen at a Midwest high school had, on average, fluency levels below the 25th percentile for 8th grade norms. Students at the high school level need as much help with fluency as possible. Here are some strategies that might help you increase this in your classroom:
- Reader's Theaters - These can be used in many ways. You can write your own, you have students write one, or many can be found online. Links are provided below the example of some other sources for reader's theaters. Basically, you take information and turn it into a script with multiple parts for your students to read. Students have to work together to practice reading the scripts and then present the information to the class. Below is an example of a reader's theater used to teach about Abraham Lincoln and the "Gettysburg Address".
Resources for reader's theaters:
Eros and Psyche Part I and Eros and Psyche Part II
Vermillion Parish Reader's Theater
Timelessteachersstuff.com (toward the bottom of the page)
Reader's Theater Rubric from ReadWriteThink.org
Eros and Psyche Part I and Eros and Psyche Part II
Vermillion Parish Reader's Theater
Timelessteachersstuff.com (toward the bottom of the page)
Reader's Theater Rubric from ReadWriteThink.org
- Read out loud to students (Zehr, 2010) - If you do this from the textbook, make sure to break it up with other activities or texts, but reading out loud is important for students. You need to model what good reading looks like in your content area. It also doesn't hurt that you will be pronouncing all those tricky words correctly for them so they can hear what they are supposed to sound like; it can also be used to build interest in the material. In the article by Zehr (2010), she found a 2006 research study by Lettie K. Albright where research showed that the practice of reading out loud "builds middle school students' knowledge in content areas, helps them have positive attitudes toward reading, and helps increase their reading fluency. In the same article, she interviews many high school teachers about what they do in the classroom. "Mr. Hankins said he often faked having read an assigned book when he was in school, and as long as he is reading aloud to his students, they won't have a chance to do the same. That's one reason why he reads Of Mice and Men and other literature out loud" (Zehr, 2010). Of course, you don't have to be the one to read to your students, you could find audio versions of the texts to play, have students read to each other in pairs, have choral readings, etc. (Rasinski & et al., 2005).
- Non-fiction read alouds - This is a strategy I learned about at Content-Area Capacity Building training through Heartland AEA 11. It starts out with a teacher reading a short non-fiction text (I recommend no more than 300 words). Then the teacher provides students with an assortment of texts on the same topic and students have to look for something specific in those texts. For example, I used one to introduce the novel, I, Robot by Isaac Assimov for the Strategies in Comprehension class. I first read a recent article on how robots are replacing humans at the workplace. I then gave my students a graphic organizer we were going to use for discussion. The discussion was to be about how are robots currently being used, are those uses good or bad, and why are those uses good or bad. I modeled how to fill out the graphic organizer with information from the article I had just read. I then handed out a variety of articles about robotics to the class so each student had one or two different articles to use for the organizer. After students looked through their one or two articles, we charted (small class of eight), all their charts on the white board so we all had a taste of what people in the class read. After we had everything charted, we had a roundtable discussion on the topic.
- Light reading - Students who do light reading (reading things like comics, novels, etc. for fun) "become more fluent readers in the process" (Cullinan, 2000). Let students have opportunities read what they want to read (Cullinan, 2000).
- Repeated readings - This is just as it sounds: have students read and then read again. This is the idea behind reader's theaters (see above) to make it a little more engaging for students then just reading the same passage over again. However you choose to work in repeated readings, they are "one fo the most powerful ways to increase reading fluency" (Rasinski & et al., 2005).
Vocabulary Instruction
Helping your students learn the vocabulary terms can increase both fluency and comprehension skills and therefore is probably the most important skill to focus on if you don't have much time for the others.
- Inside Words. Below is a summary of Janet Allen's Inside Words which contains research-based vocabulary instructional strategies I put together.
- SERP. Another resource that may be useful to you is SERP Word Generation. You have to create an account, but once you do, it's worth. This program provides free unit plans built around debatable issues such as performance-enhancing drugs. All materials are provided in PDFs that you can download once you have an account.
- Quizlet. Sometimes, especially in foreign language classes, students just have to memorize vocabulary terms. A site I like to use for those occasions is Quizlet.com. On this site, you can create virtual flashcards or find a set that someone else has made. The site is free once you sign up and you can invite all of your students to join your class so you can keep tabs on their progress as they study their vocabulary terms. One feature students enjoy is that the website offers a couple of review games, and if they are logged in to your class, they can get competitive trying to earn the high scores in each game.
Bibliography
Howard, D. and Marney D. March 2009. "Our job is to promote reading": North Central Regional Library's Mission. ALKI, 14-15. Retrieved from https://resources.oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/group/6eed208c-bc4b-4658-ab50-6c9ee012c201/Public%20Library%20Services/Week%202/Howard%20Ourjobpromotereading.pdf.
Pitcher, S.M., N.K. Albright, C.J. DeLaney, N.T. Walker, K. Seunarinesingh, S. Mogge, K.N. Headley, V.G. Ridgeway, S. Peck, R. Hunt, and P.J. Dunston. (February 2007). Assessing adolescents' motivation to read. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(5). 378-396.
Rasinski, T.V., N.D. Padak, C.A. McKeon, L.G. Wilfong, J.A. Friedauer, & P. Heim. (September 2005). Is reading fluency a key for successful high school reading? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(1), 22-27).
Zehr, M.A. (2010, January 6). Reading aloud to teens gains favor among teachers. Education Week, 29(16), 1.
Pitcher, S.M., N.K. Albright, C.J. DeLaney, N.T. Walker, K. Seunarinesingh, S. Mogge, K.N. Headley, V.G. Ridgeway, S. Peck, R. Hunt, and P.J. Dunston. (February 2007). Assessing adolescents' motivation to read. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(5). 378-396.
Rasinski, T.V., N.D. Padak, C.A. McKeon, L.G. Wilfong, J.A. Friedauer, & P. Heim. (September 2005). Is reading fluency a key for successful high school reading? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(1), 22-27).
Zehr, M.A. (2010, January 6). Reading aloud to teens gains favor among teachers. Education Week, 29(16), 1.