Research

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Research

• Literacy in the Upper Grades

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Reading Next A Vision for Action and Research in
Middle and High School Literacy

• Secondary Educators must
• Select materials of interest to students
• Differentiate fact from opinion
• Integrate new information with what students
  already know

2004 Carnegie Corporation Report
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Learning to Read Reading to Learn

• Shift from early grades focus of learning to read
  to the next step of reading to learn.
• Older students text more complex and
  comprehensive than elementary textbooks
• Older students not as motivated to read
• 2005-2006 JCS Student Survey Only 26 of
  students surveyed indicate that they read for
  pleasure on their own.

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Improving Reading Instruction

• Professional development
• Ongoing formative assessment of students
  prevent overlooking learning gaps
• Ongoing formative assessment of programs
  evaluate the effectiveness of programs

http//www.all4ed.org
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Translating Research into Practice

• Provide a wide range of strategies allowing
  students to
• Become familiar with written language
• Develop comprehension skills
• Become enthusiastic readers
• Apply reading strategies to new situations

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Older students become better readers when they
learn to

• read narrative and expository text,
• understand what they read,
• use the strategies flexibly,
• be persistent in trying new strategies, and
• communicate with others about what they have
  read.

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Instructional Strategies to Improve Student
Achievement

• Identify similarities and differences
• Summarize and take notes
• Reinforce effort and provide recognition
• Participation in learning groups
• Provide feedback
• Generate and use hypotheses
• Use cues, questions, and advance organizers

Classroom Instruction that Works Research-Based
Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement,
(ASCD, 2001) Marzano, Pickering, Pollack
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Content Area Reading

• Content area reading
• Helps students make connection between they
  already know and the new information presented.
• Teachers must help students link reading and new
  learning in content areas.

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3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading

• The Teacher must know the subject area, how to
  motivate students to learn, and the reading
  process.
• Teacher must motivate, instruct, and guide to
  help students make the connection between what
  they already know and the new information.

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3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading

• The Student Critical elements include the
  students prior knowledge, experiences, language
  development, reading ability, and attitude toward
  school

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3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading

• The Content must be complete, interesting, and
  meaningful or students will retain content for
  teachers test (regurgitating facts), but perform
  poorly on year end standardized tests.

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Learning is cemented after 17-41 rehearsals.

• How is content area reading taught?
• Interaction with the text
• Making sense of what they are reading
• Applying reading strategies to help them
  understand

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Consider Prior Knowledge
(The content knowledge and person experience the
reader brings to the text)

• Pre-reading strategies
• Brainstorming
• Asking questions
• Providing analogies
• Discussing the topic

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Consider Text Features

• Science and social studies (and math) texts are
  above the reading level of many students.
• Common text patterns
• Comparison/contrast
• Descriptive pattern
• Episode pattern
• Time sequence
• Process/cause-effect
• General to specific

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Vocabulary

• Vocabulary terms are rarely part of the content
  students already know.
• Least effective means looking up words in
  glossary and writing definitions.
• Students needs strategies to learn new concepts
  and make connections.

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Four Levels of Word Recognition

• Full Word Knowledge students understand then
  meaning and how the word changes in context.
• Partial Word Knowledge Student know the work in
  context and can use it in their writing
• Initial Word Knowledge Students recognize the
  word and can pronounce it, but do not know its
  meaning.
• Unknown Word Student cannot read or recognize
  the word.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Initially Provide Students with a Description,
  Explanation, or Example as Opposed to a Formal
  Definition
• When introducing a new term or phrase it is
  useful to avoid a formal definition---at least at
  the start. This is because formal definitions are
  typically not very "learner friendly." Provide
  students with a description, explanation, or
  example much like what one would provide a friend
  who asked what a term or phrase meant.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Have Students Generate Their Own Descriptions,
  Explanations, or Examples
• Once a explanation has been provided to students
  they should be asked to restate that information
  in their own words.
• It is important that students do not copy exactly
  what the teacher has offered.
• Student descriptions, explanations, and examples
  should be their own constructions using their own
  background knowledge and experiences .

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Have Students Represent Each Term or Phrase Using
  a Graphic Representation, Picture, or Pictograph
• Students should be asked to represent the term or
  phrase in some graphic, picture, or pictographic
  form. This allows them to process the information
  in a different modality---an imagery form as
  opposed to a linguistic form. It also provides
  deepens students understanding of the new term
  or phrase.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary
  Notebook
• An academic vocabulary notebook will help
  students develop an understanding of a set of
  terms and phrases that are important to the
  academic content in mathematics, science,
  language arts, and social studies. This implies
  that the terms and phrases that are taught using
  this approach represent a related set of
  knowledge that expands and deepens from year to
  year.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary
  Notebook
• Space should also be provided for students to
  write additional comments about the terms and
  phrases as time goes on. As will be mentioned in
  the next step, students should be engaged in
  activities that allow them to review the terms.
  As these activities occur, students can be asked
  to add to the entries in their notebooks perhaps
  correcting misconceptions, adding new
  information, or making linkages with other terms
  and phrases.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary
  Notebook
• All terms and phrases are kept in one academic
  notebook that has a or divider for each subject
  area. This would allow students to make
  comparisons between terms and phrases from
  different subject areas. The academic notebook
  might also have a "tab" or divider entitled "my
  words." In this section students would record
  terms and phrases of interest gleaned from their
  own reading experiences in or outside of school.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and
  Provide Students with Activities That Add to
  Their Knowledge Base
• If students experience a new term or phrase once
  only, they will be left with their initial,
  partial understanding of the term or phrase. To
  develop deep understanding of the terms and
  phrases in their academic vocabulary notebooks
  students must be engaged in review activities.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and
  Provide Students with Activities That Add to
  Their Knowledge Base
• Once a week or perhaps more frequently, students
  might be offered activities that add to their
  knowledge base about the terms and phrases in
  their notebooks.

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Marzanos Vocabulary Instruction Steps

• Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and
  Provide Students with Activities That Add to
  Their Knowledge Base
• After each of these activities students should be
  asked to make corrections, additions, and changes
  to the entries in their notebooks. In this way,
  students' knowledge of the academic terms and
  phrases might deepen and become a sound
  foundation on which to understand the academic
  content presented in class.

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The Blame Game
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The Blame Game

• It is unreasonable to expect that any student
  could acquire enough reading competence by the
  5th grade to carry him or her through middle
  school, high school and life, almost half of the
  middle schools offer no systematic reading
  instruction or make it available for remedial
  readers or as an elective.
• Irvin and Connors, 1989

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The Blame Game

• When struggling readers get to the middle grades,
  some middle school teachers blame elementary
  teachers. Even after the efforts of the middle
  school teachers, a few struggling students go on
  to high school, and the middle school teachers
  get blamed.

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The Blame Game

• WHOSE FAULT IS IT?CERTAINLY NOT MINE . . .The
  college professor said,"Such wrong in the
  student is a shame,Lack of preparation in high
  school is to blame."Said the high school
  teacher,"Good heavens, that boy is a fool.The
  fault, of course, is with the middle school."

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The Blame Game

• WHOSE FAULT IS IT?CERTAINLY NOT MINE . . .The
  middle school teacher said,"From such stupidity
  may I be spared,They send him to me so
  unprepared."The elementary teacher said,"The
  kindergartners are block-heads all.They call it
  preparation why, it's worse than none at all."

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The Blame Game

• WHOSE FAULT IS IT?CERTAINLY NOT MINE . . .The
  kindergarten teacher said,"Such lack of training
  never did I see,What kind of mother must that
  woman be."The mother said, "Poor helpless
  child, he's not to blameFor you see, his
  father's folks are all the same."

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The Blame Game

• WHOSE FAULT IS IT?CERTAINLY NOT MINE . . .Said
  the father, at the end of the line,"I doubt the
  rascal's even mine!"

Middle school teachers should think of their
students as athletes at the beginning of their
careers in reading, practicing basic content
reading strategies until they become automatic.
Students will gain the skills to become
superstars in any subject.