Academic Reading 6
THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC READING 6 TO
21ST CENTURY LEARNERS
READING TO LEARN.
Thinking About Academic Reading 6
There is an art of reading,
as well as an art of thinking.
Isaac Disraeli British Writer
(1804-1881)
In AC Reading 6, we work on thinking about our own thinking in reading…
making sure we do not get lost. #metacognitive
*Academic Reading 6 = AC Reading
SETTING A PURPOSE
Purposes for this presentation:
!  To underscore just how relevant AC Reading 6 is to your
present and your future. This class matters!
!  To raise awareness as to how truly important the skill of
reading for information is to your academic success.
!  To develop an understanding that the tools you learn in this
class will be needed now and most definitely in the future.
!  To begin a conversation about your metacognitive or self-
thinking strategies.
First…Unlock your brain files
!  Have you heard of these colleges?
!  The Ohio State University
!  Princeton University
!  Harvard University
!  Dartmouth University
!  The University of Pennsylvania
!  Brigham Young University
In case you did not know, most of the colleges mentioned above are
among the top 15 best colleges in our country. All of the colleges are the
top 75 best colleges in our country.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/data
Now…A Riddle For You
!  What do these colleges: Princeton, Harvard,
University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, Dartmouth,
Ohio State University, and Brigham Young among
others all have in common with Dublin City Schools
6th grade?
!  Please continue to the next slide to see if you have
predicted the correct answer.
Answer
(I bet you won’t believe it! )
!
Each one of these top 15 colleges offers to its students an Academic Reading class or provides information to
current students on the use of strategies needed for improving Academic Reading skills. (Just like the one you
are in now!)
!
It might seem hard to believe, but at the same time that you are learning Academic Reading skills…SO ARE
COLLEGE STUDENTS! (WOW!)
!
It is true! Do you want evidence to support this statement? Then you should keep reading to view the
curriculum offered at each one of these top universities. (Believe it or not; the curriculum is just like ours! )
!
Come with me on a journey to college campuses around the country. Read what college students are reading.
Become a part of my research. Are you ready? Let’s go!
!
#acreadingsms/kms #thedublindifference
Questioning My Reading
!  While researching this topic, I was amazed
by the amount of Ivy League (the best of the best) and top ranking universities that
provide Academic Reading classes/information to students attending its campuses.
!  As I read, I heard my inner voice question: Why would these prestigious colleges and
universities need to provide information and classes to support academic reading?
!  As I read, I became puzzled: Hmmm? Wouldn’t students, who were accepted to these
colleges arrive already prepared and skilled in academic reading/study skills?
After pausing to check my understanding, I realized that I needed to keep reading
to find more evidence to support my research and fix-up any misunderstandings.
Can you believe this?
!  When I continued my reading and accessed the websites of these higher-level
learning communities, I found that the same information, strategies, and
curriculum that we are offering in our very own Academic Reading 6 class is
also taught at these colleges.
!  Seriously…the same exact strategies, information, and curriculum that we
cover in our class is at the same time being offered to students at Princeton,
Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, Dartmouth, Ohio State
University, and Brigham Young. (Can you believe that? These are the TOP
colleges in our country and they are learning what we are learning! We
rock!)
Inferring the Facts
!  Using my inference skills, I concluded that some students
arriving to these elite learning institutions must have arrived
without strong academic reading skills.
!  Were they not offered an AC Reading class in 6th grade? Hmm?
"
I made a connection! Wow, am I so happy that my 6th grade students are able to
take our AC Reading class. They should be very prepared when they enter
college or the work place.
Why should we care?
!
I suppose to answer this question you would need to ask yourself another question.
!
Do you want to be the student who arrives to high school and college WITH the necessary skills to read for
information and SUCCEED? I really hope that your answer is YES!
!
Reflect for a moment on what we have talked about in AC reading:
!
!
70% of your day will be nonfiction.
You will need to “own” the skills necessary to tackle an
enormous amount of information by actively reading and studying.
!
You will need to arm yourself with a “toolbox”
of strategies so that you can pull the
right tool for the right assignment.
!
w it h
l
l
i
f
e
Pleas trategies.
ng s
readi
You have the opportunity, right now in ACADEMIC READING 6, to internalize the skills you will definitely
need to ensure your academic success… now and when you walk through the doors of higher education.
!
This is a big deal !
LUCKY TO BE IN DUBLIN!
!
Three cheers for Academic Reading 6.
!
What an amazing opportunity for you as learners to build your “toolbox” of strategies and to fill your
“brain files” with the necessary active reading and study skills to tackle difficult texts in all of
your core classes.
!
Take this opportunity to be prepared!
!
#Nonfiction reading rules!
Revealing the Evidence
!  The following slides are a peek inside the curriculum of the leading universities and
colleges that I have referenced throughout this presentation.
!  The website for each institution is provided for you at the bottom of each slide.
!  Anything in the color red is my annotation.
!  Prepare to be amazed at the similarities between our course and the offerings from
these colleges.
!  Take out your Academic Reading 6 Outline located in your binder. Compare and
contrast our outline with the course descriptions for each COLLEGE. Highlight
common words. Wait until you see how many words you have highlighted!
Academic Reading 6 Outline
From Brigham Young’s Website
!
!
Five Keys to Helping Students Read Difficult Texts
You may be surprised that many of your students are not adequate readers of the texts you assign. Many simply do not
know how to approach a challenging informational text. You can suggest five things that can make a big difference to
help them read your texts with facility and intellectual engagement. How nice to have students coming to class
prepared and full of inquiry!
!
“People go to sleep over good books not because they are unwilling to make the effort, but because they do not know
how to make the effort. Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books
that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up to their level. It is not the
stretching that tires you, but the frustration of stretching unsuccessfully because you lack the skill to stretch
effectively. To keep on reading actively, you must have not only the will to do so, but also the skill – the art that
enables you to elevate yourself by mastering what at first sight seems to be beyond you.”1
See my underline - LOVE THIS QUOTE! SO TRUE! I connect!
!
Of the twenty principles taught in Student Development 305 “Advanced Reading Strategies for College
Success,”2 several have been identified by students as having made the most difference in their reading of challenging
texts. Below are the five top strategies students wish they had known earlier in their college careers. (All are taken
from Learn More & Read Faster,2 the handbook for the course. The sources and inspirations for these strategies are
given there.)
BEFORE READING: Preview & Build Anticipation
We
BEFORE READING: Set Purpose
cove
r all
this
DURING READING: Synthesize Along the Way
of
,
t oo!
DURING READING: Ask Questions
W
real
e
AFTER READING: Explain
l
!
!
!
!
!
!
The students at this college use the THIEVES strategy…we do too!
!
http://ctl.byu.edu/node/329 - Click for more
y do
!
From THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
ES EPSY 1259
"  Learning and Motivation Strategies for Success in College
W "  ES EPSY 1259, the flagship course of the Dennis Learning Center, helps students develop the
academic beliefs and behaviors essential to success in college. More than just a study-skills
e
course, ES EPSY 1259 helps students become strategic learners in the college environment. The
course is framed in educational-psychology principles and research, and students learn both
practical skills and the theory that supports them. Topics covered include: motivation, goal
l
setting, time management, memory and learning, improving concentration, taking lecture notes,
e
reading textbooks, preparing for exams, test taking, and developing papers and speeches.
a "  ES EPSY 1259 is offered every semester.
The course covers the following topics:
r
"  Motivation and Self-Regulation Strategies…
n …strategies for developing motivation, setting goals, overcoming procrastination, and managing
time
of Learning…
t "  Foundations
…principles of effective learning and teaches strategies for enhancing concentration and memory.
h "  Active Note Taking and Reading…
…strategies for taking lecture notes and reading, marking, and organizing text information.
i
s "  Test Preparation and Test Taking…
…approaches for effective studying and strategic test taking.
!
Can you believe that you are learning many of the same strategies as college students? Crazy!
http://dennislearningcenter.osu.edu/courses/#edupl159 – click for more
From Harvard’s Website
!
!
Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas
you encounter in a written text. It's also a way to have an ongoing conversation with yourself as you
move through the text and to record what that encounter was like for you.
Make your reading thinking-intensive from start to finish! Here's how: !
Throw away your highlighter: Highlighting can seem like an active reading strategy, but it can actually distract from
the business of learning and dilute your comprehension. Those bright yellow lines you put on a printed page one day can
seem strangely cryptic the next, unless you have a method for remembering why they were important to you at another
moment in time. Pen or pencil will allow you do to more to a text you have to wrestle with. (We call this
HIGHLIGHT-ITIS in Academic Reading 6. - Learn to control the highlighting by using other strategies.)
!
Mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases: ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem
important to you, reminders of how issues in a text may connect with class discussion or course themes. This kind of
interaction keeps you conscious of the reasons you are reading as well as the purposes your instructor has in mind. Later
in the term, when you are reviewing for a test or project, your marginalia will be useful memory triggers. !
Develop your own symbol system: asterisk (*) a key idea, for example, or use an exclamation point (!) for the
surprising, absurd, bizarre. Your personalized set of hieroglyphs allow you to capture the important -- and often fleeting
-- insights that occur to you as you're reading. Like notes in your margins, they'll prove indispensable when you return to
a text in search of that perfect passage to use in a paper, or are preparing for a big exam. !
Get in the habit of hearing yourself ask questions: “What does this mean?” “Why is the writer drawing that
conclusion?” “Why am I being asked to read this text?” etc. Write the questions down (in your margins, at the beginning
or end of the reading, in a notebook, or elsewhere. They are reminders of the unfinished business you still have with a
text: something to ask during class discussion, or to come to terms with on your own, once you’ve had a chance to digest
the material further or have done other course read.
http://guides.library.harvard.edu/sixreadinghabits - CLICK FOR MORE
!
From John Hopkins’ Website
!  Course Description
!  About Visual Fluency
Yes, we do this too
!
Digital technology has made the ability to create and share images commonplace.
"The ability to both read and write visual information; the ability to learn visually; to
think and solve problems in the visual domain - will, as the information revolution
evolves, become a requirement for success in business and in life," says Dave Gray.
Visual fluency is now as vital as verbal fluency to success in college and life. These
courses incorporate principles of communication theory, design theory, cognitive
psychology, and art history to provide a basic understanding of the fundamental
principles of effective visual communication.
!  Visual Literacy
Have you ever thought about what makes certain visual images effective? (AC
Reading thinks about visual literacy!) In this course, you will explore the
components of a visual message. You will recognize the building blocks of visual
composition and learn to deconstruct and analyze visual messages. The images used
in this course include historically significant images as well as student contributions
of displays seen in everyday life. In this course, students develop a vocabulary for
visual critique to be a more careful and precise observer and a more descriptive
writer.
http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/courses/arts_humanities/visual_literacy.html Click for more about this enrichment class
From
Dartmouth College’s Website
!
Your reading purpose: Circumstances will determine why you are reading and how much
you have to get out of your reading. For example, a chapter may have been assigned in class, or
you may be gathering material for a speech, or you may be trying to impress your friends by
your knowledge of Shakespeare. You need to be eminently clear not only on such general
purposes but also on specific purpose.
!
gist
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
To "get the gist," read very rapidly. Does that say
? That is an AC Reading word!
To understand general ideas, read fairly rapidly.
To get and retain detailed facts, read at a moderate rate.
skim, scan,
To locate specific information, skim or scan at a rapid rate.
background
To determine value of material, skim at a very rapid rate.
To pre-read or post-read, scan at a fairly rapid rate.
To read for enjoyment, read rapidly or slowly, depending on what you want.
To build general background, read rapidly.
!
AC Reading uses the some of the same words as Dartmouth students! Woo-hoo!
!
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/videos/ - click for more
!
Dartmouth College’s
Website, cont.
!
Steps to Follow in Skimming for the Main Ideas
!
First, read the title of the chapter or selection carefully. Determine what clues it gives you as to what the selection is
about. Watch for key words like "causes," "results," "effects," etc., and do not overlook signal words such as those
suggesting controversy (e.g. "versus," "pros and cons"), which indicate that the author is planning to present both sides
of an argument.
!
Look carefully at the headings and other organizational clues. These tip you off to the main points that the author wants
you to learn. You may be accustomed to overlooking boldface headings and titles which are the obvious clues to the
most important ideas. If you concentrate on the details and ignore the main ideas, you will have much more difficulty
retaining the information you read.
Remember that authors of college textbooks want you to recognize the important concepts. They use:
!
!
!
!
!
Major headings and subheadings to convey major points.
And so do we
Italicized words and phrases so that crucial new terms and definitions will stand out.
Lists of points set off by numbers or paragraphs that begin with the phrases such as "The three most important
factors . . . " etc.
Redundancy or repetition. By stating and restating the facts and ideas, the author ensures that you will be exposed in
different ways to the concepts she feels are the most crucial for you to understand. She hopes that on at least one of
these exposures you will absorb the idea. Therefore, it is vital that you recognize when an important concept is being
restated in slightly different words and when you have completely mastered the idea.
©Academic Skills Center, Dartmouth College 2001
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http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/docs/vary_reading_rates.doc - click for more
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/docs/using_your_textbook.doc - click for more
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/docs/6_reading_myths.doc - click for more
From Princeton
University’s Website
!
!
!
!
Academic Strategies Workshop Series
Fall 2014
The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning is offering a series of hands-on, active, and process-focused
workshops in which students learn and apply strategies designed expressly for the highly demanding
Princeton University context. Led by McGraw's Associate Director, Nic Voge, the emphasis is on advanced and
innovative techniques for purposeful and efficient learning. Students apply the strategies to their own course
materials whenever possible during the workshops and, ideally, make a one-to-one follow-up appointment in
The McGraw Center which builds upon what they learned in the workshop.
The strategies introduced emerge from a common core of research-based learning principles and comprise an
integrated strategic approach. While each workshop can stand alone, the series is designed to build on itself
and thus reinforce the core principles, and yet is sequenced to be responsive to the current demands of the
semester (e.g. midterms).
!
!
Advanced Reading and Learning from Text Strategies
Learn How to Maximize Your Reading Efficiency
To achieve academic success at Princeton it is crucial for students to develop superior strategies for reading
and learning from text. In this workshop you will learn: •an approach that helps you align your learning strategies to instructor objectives
•techniques for reading various kinds of academic texts
•strategies for enhancing retention and recall
•methods for reading faster and more efficiently
This is an active, hands-on workshop in which you will learn specific strategies by applying them. Even Princeton students learn AC reading skills! WOW!
From
The University of Pennsylvania
!  How should I approach reading a primary source?
!  PREPARATION: Learning is a process of hanging new information
!
!
!
!
!
!
on a framework of knowledge that already exists in your mind.
Before starting to read, ask yourself a couple
Look familiar?
of questions to help identify your framework.
- What do I already know about this subject?
- What do I want to get out of this reading?
WHILE READING: Try to think critically while reading a primary
source. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the author saying?
Look familiar?
- What does the author imply?
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/lrc/lr/PDF/primary sources %28W
%29.pdf – click to read more
Summarize
!  Summarize…Universities and colleges across the country are offering classes/
information which are very similar to what we are actively learning in our
Academic Reading 6 class. Wow!
#shocking!
!  Summarize… Based on the information that I have read and researched, I can
summarize that certain students who have had the grades to be accepted into
some of the best colleges in the country like: Princeton, Harvard, University of
Pennsylvania, Penn State, Dartmouth, Ohio State University, and Brigham
Young, must still find themselves in need of active reading and study strategies
once they arrive to campus.
SO…What do you think?...
!  Take a few minutes to brainstorm with your small
group:
Explain what message the author of this presentation was
trying to convey.
!  Connect. How could this presentation connect to your own
life?
!  Discuss what you found most interesting about this
presentation.
!  Nonfiction reading strategies are________________.
!
Listen as your teacher reads this excerpt
about the importance of nonfiction reading.
From: Genre Study - Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books
Authors: Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell
"Nonfiction permeates our lives in essential ways. It guides our actions,
helping us know what to do and how to do it. Through non-fiction, we expand
our knowledge of the world; it shapes our opinions. We gain knowledge that
helps us make better personal decisions about health, finances, property and
relationships. We gain knowledge that helps us become better at our jobs and
better citizens.
!
As students engage with nonfiction across the middle school grades, they
build a foundation for their lifelong appreciation of these texts. They NEED
EXPOSURE to a far greater variety than textbooks offer. It is important that
they read many different kinds of texts for a range of real purposes. As students
process texts, they learn to adjust their reading according to the purpose, style,
and type of text. This flexibility expands their reading ability. Complex
nonfiction texts present a challenge to students, partly because of their great
variety and also because of the many ways writers can craft texts to provide
information. It takes many years for readers to become skilled in reading the
various genres and types of nonfiction texts." (Fountas & Pinnell, 2012)
!
!
!
!
I say get started right now. However, keep this in mind
IT WON’T ALWAYS BE
AN EASY JOURNEY
“READING IS HARD AND
HARD IS NECESSARY!”
-Kelly Gallagher
BUT….you can learn anything. See the
video below.
https://www.khanacademy.org/youcanlearnanything/main
You have room to grow
your brain is not done yet.
You can grow beyond YOUR present!
"  You
can Know more!
"  You
can Do more!
"  You
can READ more!
"  You
just need GRIT! (Dig deep and persevere!)
!  Worth watching:
!  #GRIT! Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit
!  youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8 – right click open
hyperlink
REFLECTION…Dublin Rocks!
You can be prepared!
!
How lucky we are to be a part of an amazing learning community such as Dublin City Schools .
!
How lucky we are to be a part of Academic Reading 6.
!
How lucky we are to have the chance to prepare right now for all the information we will need to read
during our lifetime.
!
We understand the importance of the academic reading/study skills that you as a learner will need in
order to excel both within the walls of Dublin schools and more globally as you enter colleges and
universities nationwide.
!
21st Century learning for 21st Century learners!
!
#TheDublinDifference
Finally…Get around the leaf!
!  Finally, always remember to choose and AC Reading
Strategy that helps you to get around the “leaf”!
!  “A Bug’s Life”
!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L26U_gBfnPw
!  Leaf = Obstacle
!  AC Reading Strategy = Solution
!  Inspired by Missy Fisher at a staff meeting.
Academic Reading 6
ENJOY YOUR
NONFICTION
READING JOURNEY!
#TheDublinDifference
Teresa Ausmus 2014