Content Area Literacy Strategies

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Content Area Literacy Strategies

• Presented by
• Literacy Focus Group
• at Carlos Garcia Diversity Education Center
• Cathy Oglebay, Tracy Pacheco,
• Amy Raymer, Stacey Turnier

2
Agenda

• 730 - 800 Breakfast
• 800 - 820 Whole Group instructions and
  plans for the day
• 825 - 1000 Breakout Session 1
• 1000 - 1015 Break
• 1015 - 1145 Breakout Session 2
• 1145 - 1245 Lunch
• 1250 - 215 Breakout Session 3
• 215 - 241 Strategy Implementation
  Collaboration

3
Breakout Sessions

• Get Psyched to Read Motivational strategies for
  all contents
• Oh Now I Get It Comprehension strategies in all
  contents
• Map It Out Graphic organizers for content area
  literature
• Whats That Word Vocabulary development
  strategies

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Goals and Outcomes

• Promote motivation through use of various
  techniques
• Apply strategies to increase comprehension of
  nonfiction text
• Utilize a variety of graphic organizers in
  content areas
• Extend practices for vocabulary development
• Collaborate with colleagues for implementation of
  various strategies

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English Language Arts Standards

• 1.0 Students know and use word analysis skills
  and strategies to comprehend new words
  encountered in text.
• 2.0 Students use reading process skills and
  strategies to build comprehension.
• 3.0 Students read to comprehend, interpret, and
  evaluate literature from a variety of authors,
  cultures, and times.
• 4.0 Students read to comprehend, interpret, and
  evaluate informational texts for specific
  purposes.
• 5.0 Students write a variety of texts that
  inform, persuade, describe, evaluate, or tell a
  story and are appropriate to purpose and audience.

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ELA standards continued

• 6.0 Students write with a clear focus and
  logical development, evaluating, revising, and
  editing for organization, style, tone, and word
  choice.
• 7.0 Students write using standard English
  grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization, and
  spelling.
• 8.0 Students listen to and evaluate oral
  communications for content, style, speaker's
  purpose, and audience appropriateness.
• 9.0 Students speak using organization, style,
  tone, voice, and media aids appropriate to
  audience and purpose.
• 10.0 Students participate in discussions to
  offer information, clarify ideas, and support a
  position.
• 11.0 Formulate research questions, use a variety
  of sources to obtain information, weigh the
  evidence, draw valid conclusions, and present
  findings.

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Motivation Self Questioning

• What is motivation to you?
• Give 5 examples of how motivation influences your
  life.
• What would happen if those motivations were not
  there? How would you be different?
• What is one thing you wish you had more
  motivation to do?

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Motivation in Reading Think/Pair/Share

• Hot dog fold your paper into two sections.
• Label section 1 Why students need to read the
  text in my class.
• Label section 2 Why students may not want to
  read the text in my class.
• Work with a buddy to fill in your list.
• We will share the list in 3 minutes.

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Now what do we do?

• Skim article Contexts for Engagement and
  Motivation in Reading. Note vocabulary that
  intrigues you.
• Read first three sections of article silently
  use three post-its for personal connections.
• Group reading Instructional Contexts for
  Engagement topics divided up to groups.
• Read and discuss assigned contexts

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Motivational Strategy

• Important Points

• How to implement in classroom

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You pick three

• Decide on three of the techniques discussed by
  the groups and make you own best motivational
  practices idea sheet.
• Share with the group.

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Who says?

• Engaged reading is strongly associated with
  reading achievement. Students who read actively
  and frequently improve their comprehension of
  text as a consequence (Guthrie Wigfield,
  2002).
• Schools should cultivate an ethos that supports
  reading. Schools that are effective in teaching
  reading are characterized by vigorous leadership,
  high expectations, an emphasis on academic
  learning, order and discipline, uninterrupted
  time for learning, and staffs that work together
  (Anderson, et. al, 1985).

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Standards Matter

• List all of the activities/lessons recall from
  this session.

• Look over the list of ELA standards given to you
  at the beginning of the day. In the second
  column, list all of the ELA standards covered in
  each activity. Keep this list with you for your
  next two sessions.

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Why it is important to teach comprehension skills

• Some scary stats
• 8.7 million 4th-12th graders read below grade
  level
• close to 70 of 8th graders who are low SES read
  below the proficient level, and 25 fail to read
  at the most basic level
• almost 50 of African Americans and Hispanic 8th
  graders read below the basic level
• 82 of prison inmates are school dropouts, many
  of whom are unable to read

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JIGSAW

• Cooperative learning groups where individual
  students become experts on their topic and teach
  it to the other students in the group of 4-6. 
• Uses in varying subjects
• Language Arts  assign members a story component
  character, plot, setting, theme, etc.
• Social Studies assign members geography topics
  location, place, human-environment interaction,
  movement, and regions
• Science assign members topics Acids, bases, and
  salts
• Math as review of fractions assign members
  adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing
  fractions

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Team Games Tournament

• Cooperative groups using competition as a
  motivator.  Students work in groups to answer
  quiz questions together.
• Uses in varying subjects
• Language Arts  Topic Vocabulary
• go over words/definitions, use synonyms, and
  fill in the blanks in sentences
• Social Studies  Topic immigrants to the United
  States
• discuss catastrophes in the 1880s, reasons
  immigrants came, and problems they encountered in
  the U.S.
• Science  Topic  states of matter
• Discuss solids, liquids, gases, properties, and
  matter
• Math  Topic Geometry
• study shapes, area, volume, measurement, and
  formulas

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Assessing Strategies

• For both comprehension strategies, simply making
  a log of which student answered which questions
  correctly can be an assessment.  In both
  strategies, however, individual student
  participation needs to be observed and taken into
  account.  In the end, all students are
  responsible for all information, not simply the
  areas that they learned and taught to their
  classmates.  So, teachers need to be aware of the
  conversations that are taking place amongst the
  groups.  Also, make sure to listen for depth of
  correctness.  Did the students just get a
  memorized answer correct, or did they explain why
  their answer was the correct one?  There are
  different levels of cognition taking place
  between these two examples.

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Graphic Organizers

• Graphic organizers are popular tools for
  promoting and extending student understanding of
  concepts and the relationships between them.
  They are visual displays often arranged in
  squares or bubbles with connecting lines that
  portray relationships.
• Graphic organizers developed as a result of
  Ausubels (1960) research on advance organizers
  and their benefits.

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Why use graphic organizers?

• 1. Facilitates Comprehension
• Helps become an active reader
• Prompts students to re-read text
  passages in order to clarify
  understanding
• 2. Supports students who struggle with literacy
• Promotes recall information
• Can help modify content area textbooks
• Scaffolds information when constructing
  written products

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Why use graphic organizers cont.

• Hawk (1986) favored graphic organizer strategies
  because
• Provides an overview of material learned
• Reference point for vocabulary
• Main ideas into an orderly pattern
• A cue for important information
• Visual stimulus for written and verbal
  information
• Concise review tool

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When can you use a graphic organizer?

• Pre-Reading
• Activate prior knowledge
• Brainstorming
• During Reading
• Record events in detail
• Post Reading
• Review of topic
• Assessment
• Construct an answer
• Gives opportunity to demonstrate what students
  know
• Alverman and Boothby (1986) agree that when
  graphic organizers are used as a during reading
  and post reading activity comprehension increases.

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Types of Graphic Organizers

• Concepts Maps
• Flow Diagrams
• Tree Diagrams
• Matrices
• Word Sorts
• Compare/Contrast
• Venn Diagrams
• Graphic organizers can be used throughout the
  curriculum. Subjects such as English, Social
  Studies, Mathematics, Science, and Electives can
  incorporate graphic organizers (Fisher and Frey
  2004).

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Standards Matter, part 2

• List all activities from this workshop. (Draw a
  line to separate this sessions activities from
  the other session.)

• List the ELA standards covered in each activity.

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Vocabulary Development

• Fact
• Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive
  process that cannot be understood without a clear
  description of the role of that vocabulary
  development and vocabulary instruction play in
  the understanding of what is being read. (NRP
  December, 2002)
• Fact
• Good vocabulary instruction emphasizes useful
  words (words that students see frequently),
  important words (key words that help students
  understand the text), and difficult words
  (idiomatic words, words with more than one
  meaning)

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Guidelines for Vocabulary Instruction

• Start with the known and build on that.
• Provide multiple exposures.
• Involve students in varied activities.
• Teach to promote transfer.
• Include discussion.
• Create a word-rich environment.

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Principles of Vocabulary Instruction

• Pre-teaching important vocabulary greatly
  improves comprehension.
• When the teacher is interested and intrigued by
  words, their students will be more likely to
  develop a life-long love of new words.
• Effective vocabulary instruction emphasizes
  strategies for word learning as opposed to rote
  memorization.

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Instructional Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary

• Maps Semantic and Concept of definition
• Semantic Feature Analysis
• Possible Sentences
• Visual Associations-Vocabulary Square
• List-Group-Label-Write
• Context Clues
• Target Words-Sentences, Text
• Knowledge Rating
• VSS-Vocabulary Self-Collection

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Give it a try

• Have students find the words they need to learn
  and build personal word lists.
• Teach students how to determine word meanings
  from context clues.
• Choose two or three vocabulary instructional
  strategies, teach students how to use the
  strategies, and use them throughout the year.

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Vocabulary Assessment

• Making dictionaries
• Vocabulary theatre
• Cloze assessment
• Flip cards (index cards)

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Standards Matter, part 3

• List all activities from this workshop. (Draw a
  line to separate this sessions activities from
  the other sessions.)

• List the ELA standards covered in each activity.

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Collaboration Time

• Meet with your collaborative teaching
  groups/departments.
• Choose ONE strategy you will adopt for your
  department. Be sure that you are in consensus as
  you will be using the strategy you choose in your
  own classroom.
• As a collaborative group/department, fill in the
  Department Adopted Strategy NCR form. You will
  keep a copy of this form and the literacy group
  will keep the other.
• The literacy group will check in periodically to
  offer support and suggestions in implementing
  your groups designated strategy.

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Bibliography

• Black, S. (2005). Reaching the Older Reader.
  American School Board Journal, 50-52,70.
• Guthrie, J.T. (2000) Contexts for Engagement and
  Motivation in Reading. Reading Online. Retrived
  June 24, 2005.
• Fisher, D Frey, N. (2004). Improving Adolescent
  Literacy Strategies at Work. New Jersey Pearson
  Education.
• Merkley, D.M. Jefferies, D. (2001). Guideline
  for Implementing a Graphic Organzier. The Reading
  Teacher. 54, 350-357.
• Readence, J. E., Bean, T. W., Baldwin, R. S.
  (2004). Content Area Literacy An integrated
  approach (8th ed.). Iowa Kendall/Hunt Publishing
  Company.

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Bibliography Continued

• Salder, C.R. (2001). Comprehension Strategies for
  Middle Grade Learners. Canada. International
  Reading Association, Inc.