Literacy Comprehension Strategies for Social Studies

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Literacy Comprehension Strategies for Social
Studies

• Engaging the Mind of the Learner
• Developing strategic learners
• Promoting skills to access text

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It must be remembered that the purpose of
education is not to fill the minds of students
with facts, it is not to reform them or amuse
them or make them expert technicians in any
field. It is to teach them to think, if that is
possible, and always to think for themselves.
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• Rationale for Teaching Content-Area Literacy
• Textbooks are often the primary means for
  learning content information therefore, teachers
  need to provide students with strategies for
  reading specific content-area texts to ensure
  comprehension.
• Merely assigning reading does not help students
  construct meaning or ensure understanding of
  content-area goals.
• Students often find textbook reading
• irrelevant to their lives
• unless teachers help them
• make meaningful connections.

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• Rationale for Teaching
• Content-Area Literacy
• Without teacher support, students fail to make
  interdisciplinary and intra-content connections
  as they read assigned texts.
• Without specific content-area reading
  instruction, many students often do not
  comprehend what they read and lack essential
  strategies needed in order to understand core
  content information.

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A Strategic Learner
Rachel Billmeyer

• Relies on cognitive and metacognitive abilities
• Sets goals and reflects on progress
• Works actively to construct meaning

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Benefits of Incorporating Strategic Learning

• Creates critical thinkers
• Develops independent and interdependent learners-
  tool box of fix-it strategies to address own
  learning needs
• Increases retention, understanding, and ability
  to apply concepts learned
• Provides opportunities
• for students to engage
• in self assessment activities

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Before Strategies

• Admit ticket
• Anticipation Guide

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Anticipation Guides

• Activates prior knowledge
• Use as a formative assessment
• Gives students a purpose for reading
• Practice
• Complete the left hand column of the Anticipation
  guide created for this workshop
• Briefly discuss your opinions with those at your
  table
• You will address these statements at the end of
  the afternoon.

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Your Turn

• Now select a portion of your text that you will
  be covering in the near future
• Devise an anticipation guide for your students to
  respond to using your own content
• 5 8 statements some true /some false
• 10 minutes

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Reflection

• Know the goal
• Know what is expected of them
• Understand what knowledge
• they already possess
• Are given clear models and examples for
• goal completion and thinking required
• Know how to assess their performance
• Can predict uses/implications
• for the knowledge

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Reflection

• Your Turn
• complete first row of Reflection sheet

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Successful Teaching

• Keep all students mentally engaged in productive
  activities throughout the entire lesson, rather
  than waiting for something to happen.
• Student achievement
• Motivation
• Self reliance
• Unrelated activity
• When I hear, I forget, when I see, I remember,
• when I do I learn.

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Whats important to us.
Recognize that all strategies refer to reader
actions and many skills refer to types of
information Teaching combinations of strategies
are more effective (such as reciprocal teaching,
SQ3R) Clarity of explanation Modeling of
thinking Guided practice Independent
practice Gradual release of control
I do it -we do it- you do it together - you do
it.
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• A newspaper is better than a magazine, and on a
  seashore is a better place than a street. At
  first, it is better to run than walk. Also, you
  may have to try several times . It takes some
  skill but its easy to learn. Even young
  children can enjoy it. Once successful,
  complications are minimal. One needs a lot of
  room. Rain soaks in very fast. Too many people
  doing the same thing can cause problems. If
  there are no complications, it can be very
  peaceful. Something heavy works as an anchor.
  If it breaks loose you may not get a second
  chance.

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Construct meaning
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SQ3R- Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review

• Provides purpose and meaning for textbook reading
• Deepens understanding of the material through
  multiple steps
• Survey text structures
• Generate questions from headings
• Read selection, make connections, answer
  questions
• Discuss, highlight, take notes to recall answers
• Go back over reading for retention and
  clarification

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Your turn

• Choose a section of your own text and
• complete the SQ3R form with sample answers for
  your own instruction in this strategy.
• Work in partners or groups
• Discuss the strategy and its implications in your
  classroom

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Reflection
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A Strategic Learner

• Links new information to prior knowledge.
• Anyone interested in te_________ is concerned
  about c____________. Its hard to imagine
  te__________ sch________ without them. Although
  they can sometimes be bothersome, we t_________
  them. When t_____ go wrong, we sometimes blame
  the p________, instead of accepting
  responsibility for the consequences ourselves.
• Cummings, 1990

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A Strategic Learner

• Links new information to prior knowledge.
• Anyone interested in television___ is concerned
  about commercials___. Its hard to imagine
  television___ schedules____ without them.
  Although they can sometimes be bothersome, we
  tolerate__ them. When things__ go wrong, we
  sometimes blame the product___, instead of
  accepting responsibility for the consequences
  ourselves.
• Cummings, 1990

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connections
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• Better learning will not come from finding
  better ways for the teacher to instruct, but from
  giving the learner better opportunities to
  construct.
• Papert 1990

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A Strategic Learner

• Uses organizational patterns.
• Considers individual learning style.
• Collaborates with others to learn.
• Engages in three phases of thinking
• planning( before), during, reflective (after)

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Reciprocal Teaching

• Compilation of 4 comprehension strategies
• Summarizing
• questioning
• Clarifying
• predicting
• Access to text using different skills at once

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• Two formats for using reciprocal teaching.
• Form groups of 4 each.
• Decide on roles for each member.
• Students read short section of article together.
• Each role determines the information they need to
  address.
• After reading the selection each shares the
  information they wrote.
• Students change roles and read next section
  together.
• OR
• Form groups -number not important.
• Each student reads selection individually or in
  pairs looking for the information for each of
  the 4 areas.
• Share information as pairs and as a group.

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Reflection
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Organizational Patterns

• Chronological sequence
• Compare/contrast
• Concept definition
• Description
• Episode
• Generalization/ Principle
• Process/ Cause- effect

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Cause Effect- Fishbone

• 1. Read the assigned text on your own.
• 2. Work with your partner to identify the key
  event (the effect) in the reading. List this
  effect/event in the head of the fishbone.
• 3. Discuss causes. What led up to it? Write
  details on the correct bone or category on the
  diagram.
• 4. Share your diagram with another pair of
  students. Compare discuss. Add change as
  needed.
• 5. Share your results with the class.

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Reflection
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Working together
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Instructional Implications

• Review with students any experiences or
  connections to this organization of information
• Describe pattern, purpose, signal words,
  questions it answers
• Provide and example and explain its use
• Demonstrate organizer
• Give guided practice in finding own examples
• Assign writing tasks using organizers
• Improves reading comprehension
• Reinforces understanding

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Criteria for Strategy Selection

• Determine the learning objective and select
  strategies congruent to the objective
• Determine the levels of thinking needed to
  understand the concept and select a strategy
  appropriate for the level
• Analyze the level of difficulty of the concept
  being studied and strategies which match the
  level of difficulty and students levels of
  learning (differentiated instruction)
• Decide if the students will benefit by working
  independently and or interdependently
• Select strategies appropriate for the time
  available for learning the concept
• Determine how much time and effort the strategies
  will require and decide if the concept is worth
  the additional time and effort.

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History Events Chart

• Chunk the text reading into sections
• Students read a section and fill in the row for
  that section
• Students read second section and fill in row for
  that section
• Then they fill in the relationship both sections
  have with each other
• Continue to read a section and fill in the
  relationship that each event had with the
  previous one. 
• At end of readings, students summarize the
  readings with one main point
• Your Turn
• Individually, with a partner or a group, select a
  section of your text complete the frame.
• 10 min.

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Reflection
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Thinking Reflection
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S.O.A.P
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Primary Documents Archaic Language

• Choose one of the given statements written in
  original language or translation
• Individually determine / highlight confusing
  language
• Using column chart- write phrase
• Decide on your own interpretation of the language
• Form a circle with the group around you and
  pair off
• (A B)
• A tells B one idea and both discuss it
• B turns around and tell that idea or one of his
  /her own to the person behind him- A listens
• Then goes back to hear another of A s ideas

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• What Teachers Can Do
• Help students develop strategies needed to
  construct meaning while reading in the content
  areas.
• Develop and model a repertoire of methods to
  support students before, during, and after
  reading in their specific content area.

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• What Teachers Can Do
• Supplement required texts
• with a variety of reading materials (literature,
  articles, pamphlets, etc.) specifically related
  to content-area benchmarks
• Allow time for students to collaborate to
  discuss, question, and extend understanding of
  content-related readings.

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Reflection

• In your packet are other excellent strategies
• Refer back to your Anticipation Guide.
• How might you complete that?
• Refer to your Admit Ticket
• Were you able to answer the question?
• Complete the
• Ticket out the Door