Reading Matters

1
Reading Matters

• Chapter 1
• Fall 2004

2
Getting to Know You

• You will form small groups and using the large
  paper create a visual (no words) that conveys the
  following information about your group
• Similarities
• Differences
• Passions
• Why want to be a teacher?

3
Discussion

• Reading instruction in middle/secondary schools
  is unnecessary.
• Content area teachers should expect students to
  read their textbooks.
• Content area teachers should teach their students
  how to study.
• The primary role of the content area teacher is
  to teach subject matter.
• It is important to students how to think and
  evaluate the usefulness of texts.

4
Getting to know your text

• Scavenger Hunt
• Why would you use this strategy?
• How would using this strategy help your students?
• Select one of your content texts and develop a
  scavenger hunt using 5 items

5
Reading Matters

• The Commission on Adolescent Literacy of the
  International Reading Association (1999)
  stated.
• Tomorrows adults will need advanced levels of
  literacy to perform their jobs.
• What does this mean to us as teachers?

6
No Child Left Behind

• 2002 President Bush
• Provisions
• Standards-based education
• High-stakes testing
• Teacher quality
• (Highly Qualified Teacher)
• Strong academic background

7
Being an Artful Teacher

• Learning from text
• Learning with text
• Beyond Assign and Tell
• Goodlad Dominant Activities
• Assignment
• Lecture
• Recitation (oral questioning where teacher
  already knows the answers wanted)

8
Understanding Literacy

• Literacy
• Functional
• Illiteracy
• Aliteracy
• Content literacy
• Specific skills related to reading/writing and
  integrated with talking, listening, and viewing

9
Influences on Content literacy

• Prior knowledge, attitude and interest
• Purpose
• Language and conceptual difficulty
• Assumptions text writers make about audience
• Text structures
• Teachers beliefs about use of texts

10
Characteristics of Good Readers

• Active
• Purposeful
• Evaluative
• Thoughtful
• Strategic
• Persistent
• Productive

11
Research and Reading

• Two research-based studies
• National Reading Panel, 2000
• RAND, 2002
• Findings
• Instruction helps students develop strategies
• Integration of strategies with content improves
  comprehension

12
Findings

• Struggling readers benefit from explicit
  instruction to use strategies
• Vocabulary knowledge is related to text
  comprehension
• Effective comprehension strategies include
  question generation, question answer, monitoring,
  cooperative learning, summarizing, graphic
  organizers, knowledge of text structure

13
Findings

• Students benefit from different types of text
• Teachers who provide choices, challenging tasks,
  and collaboration increase motivation and
  comprehension

14
READING

• Taps into prior knowledge and experiences
• Works from a schema
• Schema activation (access what know and match it
  to information in the text)
• A framework for learning allows students
• Seek and select information
• Make inferences about text
• Make predictions
• Fill in gaps

15
Activity

• Turn to page 16-19
• Read the story
• Answer the following
• Who are the main characters
• What is the storyline
• What are the main themes
• Select music for each theme

16
Reader Response

• Louise Rosenblatt
• Making connections
• Efferent stance (thought)
• Focus on ideas and information encountered
• Focus outward (text)
• Aesthetic stance (feeling)
• Focus on feelings, attitudes, personal
  associations, and insights
• Focus inward (self)

17
Reader Response

• What aspect of the text interested you the most?
• What are your feelings and attitudes about this
  aspect of the text?
• What experiences have you had that help others
  understand why you feel the way you do?
  (Brozo,1989)

18
Levels of Comprehension

• Literal (reading the lines)
• Getting info explicitly from the text
• Interpretive (reading between the lines)
• Putting together info, perceiving relationships,
  and making inferences
• Applied (reading beyond the lines)
• Using information to express opinions and form
  new ideas