Reading to Learn in Content Areas

1
Reading to Learn in Content Areas

• An Overview

2
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend
to treat everything as if it were a
nail.Abraham Maslow
3
Attributed to Sir Winston ChurchillI have
always had a curious nature I enjoy learning
but I dislike being taught.
4
Reading Writing to Learn

• I wish I had known about this from the start of
  my teaching!
• Every teacher should use this information!
• I can see the difference every day in my
  classroom!
• My students really discuss the material now they
  are actually excited to learn!
• Our test scores have improved.

• Reading and writing to learn are the major tools
  for learning in any subject.
• Students will have to read with understanding and
  study effectively, as well as encounter new
  vocabulary, in all content areas.

5
Research-based Strategies

• Teachers Engage learners by
• Using writing to learn
• Using discussion to learn
• Asking students to think about what they already
  know about a topic before they learn
• Helping students preview before they read
• Helping students set purposes for reading
• Showing students how to think aloud
• Showing students how to monitor their
  understanding
• Showing students how to use context to figure out
  word meanings

• Helping students adjust their reading pace
• Showing students how to find main ideas and
  supporting details
• Helping students identify the way material is
  organized
• Helping students use the visual and graphic clues
  in material
• Helping students find effective ways to study
• Helping students find effective ways to remember
  what they read
• Helping students demonstrate what they learned

6
Students become effective learners when they

• Become strategic readers, actively engaged in
  constructing meaning from different types of
  texts.
• Recognize successful learning behaviors and know
  what to do when they are not successful.
• Engage in reflective reading by identifying
  important information, summarizing information,
  making predictions and inferences, and organizing
  and extracting necessary information to
  comprehend text.
• Monitor understanding and employ strategies to
  enhance comprehension.

• Practice a before-during-after framework for
  successful learning.
• Become autonomous, motivated, independent,
  learners.
• Set meaningful purposes for learning.
• Ask thoughtful questions and find answers.
• Build content-specific vocabularies and become
  independent word learners
• Use reading to enhance writing and use writing to
  understand reading.

7
Adolescent Literacy Commission Principles

• Because of the expanding literacy demands placed
  upon adolescents, we believe that they deserve
• Access to a wide variety of reading material that
  they can and want to read
• Instruction that builds both the skill and desire
  to read increasingly complex materials
• Assessment that shows them their strengths and
  their needs and that guides their teachers to
  design instruction that will best help them grow
  as readers
• Expert teachers who model and provide explicit
  instruction in reading comprehension and studying
  strategies across the curriculum
• Reading specialists who assist individual
  students having difficulties learning how to
  read
• Teachers who are versed in understanding the
  complexities of individual adolescent readers,
  respect their differences, and respond to their
  unique characteristics and
• Homes, communities and a nation that will support
  their efforts to achieve advanced levels of
  literacy, and provide the support necessary for
  them to succeed.
• Full text located at www.reading.org (Committees
  Special Interest Groups Adolescent Literacy
  Commission)