Content Area Literacy for
Science, SS & Technical
Subjects
Presented by
English Language Arts Content
Area Specialist
Amy Robinson, Ed.D.
arobinson@dupage.k12.il.us
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Statistics
• Student readiness for college-level reading
is at its lowest point in more than a decade
• Only 51 percent of 2005 ACT-tested high
school graduates are ready for collegelevel reading
Source:
http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/reading_report.pdf
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Reading Between the Lines
by ACT
More students are on track to being
ready for college-level reading in eighth and
tenth grade than are actually ready by the
time they reach twelfth grade.
Source:
http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/reading_report.pdf
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Questions to Ponder
• What role does the textbook play
• How do history teachers/scientists make
meaning from texts?
• What is the role of reading, writing,
speaking and listening in your discipline?
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
ELA/Literacy Common Core
Shifts
• Building knowledge through contentrich nonfiction
• Reading, writing and speaking grounded
in evidence from text, both literary and
informational
• Regular practice with complex text and
its academic language
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
What do proficient readers do?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Make connections to prior knowledge
Generate questions
Create mental images
Make inferences
Determine Importance
Synthesize, evaluate, summarize
Monitor reading
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Two-Column Notes RI 6.1
• Students divide a sheet of notebook paper
in half.
• While listening or reading, students record
evidence in the right column.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Two-Column Notes con.• In the left column, students can make
inferences, ask questions, or draw pictures
to clarify their evidence.
• See freeology and reading lady graphic
organizers (Santa, Havens, & Maycumber,
1988).
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Discussion on Making
Inferences RI 6.1
• What is my inference?
• What information did I use to make this
inference?
• How good was my thinking?
• Do I need to change my thinking?
• ( Marzano, 2010).
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Think Alouds 7.1
• Teachers verbalize their thought
processes while reading a selection orally.
• Verbalizations include describing things
they are doing as they read to monitor
their comprehension.
• (Davey, 1983).
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Semantic Feature Analysis RI
7.4
• This technique uses a matrix to help
students discover how one set of concepts
is related to another set.
• Introduce a Semantic Feature Analysis
graphic organizer as a tool for recording
reading observations
• (Lenski, Wham and Johns, 1999).
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Semantic Feature Analysis
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Discussion Web RI 8.9
• Teachers distribute a selected reading that
elicits clearly defined opposing viewpoints.
• A discussion web graphic organizer can be
used by the student/small group to
identify the main question of the text.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Discussion Web RI 8.9 con.• The student/small group will note the
pros/cons of the reading as well as their
final conclusion.
• The group will also place their conclusion
on an index card.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists
Team/SummerRegional Conference
Discussion Web RI 8.9 con.• Collect the cards and tally the responses.
Share the results with the class.
(Alvermann, 1991)
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Close Reading RI 9-10.1
• Students conduct a close read of a text
such as Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the
Second Virginia Convention”.
• After reading the text each student obtains
a citation table for recording data as they
conduct a second read.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Close Reading RI 9-10.1
con.• Within the table, students write specific
phrases or sentences from the
text and articulate the significance of each.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
David Coleman’s Demonstration Lesson on
A Letter from Birmingham Jail
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho_nta
YbL7o
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Resources
Alvermann, D.E. (1991). The Discussion Web: A graphic aid for
learning across the curriculum. The Reading Teacher, 45 (2), 92–99
Buehl, D. (2011). Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines.
Newark, DE: International Reading Association
Davey, B. (1983). Think-aloud: Modeling the cognitive processes of
reading comprehension. Journal of Reading, 27(1), 44-47.
Lenski, S. D., Wham, M. A. & Johns, J. L. (1999). Reading and learning
strategies for middle and high school students. Dubuque, IA:
Kendall/Hunt.
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference
Resources con.Marzano, R. (2010). Teaching inference. Educational Leadership,
67(7), 80-01.
Santa, C. M., Havens, L. T., & Maycumber, E. M. (1988). Project
CRISS—Creating independence through student-owned strategies.
Kalispell, MT: Kendall/Hunt.
http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/ela-teach-strat-612.pdf
Illinois State Board of Education/SSOS English Language Arts Content Specialists Team/Summer
Regional Conference