Content Literacy

Content area teachers can implement strategies and scaffold learning when planning and designing instruction so that students will actively engage in literacy. According to Dobbs, content area reading instruction includes: the information present in the text, and the instructional plan teachers use to help students understand the content (2003, p.3). Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz explain that in order to plan instruction effectively, teachers must be aware of the explicit and functional dimensions of content literacy. The explicit aspect of content literacy involves the development of skills and strategies that enable students to comprehend what they are reading. Functional instruction focuses more on the application of strategies needed to derive knowledge from a variety of sources of information.” (2014, p. 134). Forget defined literacy as “listening, thinking, reading, and speaking in such a way that information and ideas are processed and communicated to the benefit of self and society” (2003, p. 5). Content area teachers need to plan and design lessons so that students will actively engage in literacy. Forget goes on to discuss that poor performance in schools can be do to a lack of basic literacy skills. Therefore, teachers need to implement the skills and strategies found to be successful in literacy to ensure

Creating and implementing effective lessons for a literacy learner who is struggling with reading and writing takes much effort and appropriate resources. Throughout the Literacy Development course, I have gained much insight and resources that have become valuable tools in addressing students’ literacy needs. Each week, I conducted lessons and activities that targeted the needs of many students, but my initial focus on was on one particular student. His individual reading level, spelling development, and writing abilities were analyzed and the recorded data was used

At Brockton High School in Brockton, Massachusetts, the school put forth an initiative to integrate literacy-related instructional strategies across all content areas. This school-wide instructional goal has attributed to the overall boost to student achievement. The leadership team at Brockton High School recognized that changing the school culture would require the adults on campus to re-evaluate curriculum and instructional strategies.`Moreover, changing the mindset of school requires an examination of data to determine the area of need. The leadership at Brockton recognized that the greatest gaps in student achievement stem from the lack of literacy skills. With the use of content-specific information, literacy skills such as reading, writing,

In the past, much of the blame for adolescents’ literacy problems has been placed on elementary teachers, but recent research suggests that secondary teachers must share in the responsibility for teaching literacy.” This statement was astonishing to me. It’s odd to me that even high school students struggle with literacy. On the other hand, after learning about social promotions in my other classes, it doesn’t seem that uncommon. I feel that elementary teachers have all of the pressure to make sure students have literacy skills, so it was interesting that this article states that secondary teachers must share that responsibility. It really makes me wonder how these students have come so far without improving in literacy. This article also made it apparent to me that the Common Core State Standards view literacy as a shared initiative, and that all teachers at every grade and subject are responsible for literacy achievement (Wendt, 2013). I wouldn’t have thought that a science or math teacher would be responsible for literacy skills, but after thinking about it, it only makes sense. Students need literacy for all subjects, so it shouldn’t just be on the shoulder of the reading teachers. Another valid point is made when the article states, “Therefore, the current method of focusing on academic learning is not effective when students are unable to comprehend and apply new knowledge due to lack of reading and literacy skills.” (Wendt, 2013) How can students be expected to learn new subject area skills if they aren’t even proficient in reading? That’s the issue; they can’t. In the article Selecting Texts and Tasks for Content Area Reading and Learning,

I have gained a lot knowledge from these past nine weeks during the literacy practicum in a second-grade classroom. I have spent a large portion of my time working with the students along with my Mentor Teacher to obtain new insight on understanding and experiencing what it is like to be a literacy educator. I have spent countless hours planning, teaching, and working with my student with the knowledge that this experience will help impact my teaching in positive ways.

From the very beginning be clear about your new client's expectations of you as a web content writer. Is it clear that he or she wants straightforward web content or are there services and skills you will need to provide that you could be missing? Remember, in Beyond Content Writing: Part 1, I asked you to inventory the marketable skills that go beyond your writing talents. Client-Writer Pitfalls Straightforward web content writing means your client comes to you with a clear website/web content plan: a fixed number of webpages, minimum and maximum word count, a keyword list if necessary, a price per page or per word, and a project deadline. A client that approaches you with only a vague idea of what he or she wants, but expects you to deliver

I decided to become a content literacy teacher because I struggled a lot at school, because of my limited English. As well, because I feel that I did not received the adequate help from my content-area teachers, in other words they expected me to comprehend, and know how write and read in English perfectly. In my perspective second language students fell behind in their academics, because of the need of teachers that are committed to teach not only their subject area but to help students master their reading, writing, vocabulary and language proficiency. This problem leads ELL students to drop out of school, low self-esteem, and insecurity. For my point of view and experience some educators are not trained to deal with these kinds of situations.

What do students need in order to be successful with reading and comprehending content area texts? In other words, what factors can promote (or limit) students’ comprehension of content area texts?

All students are unique. Individual students learn differently, acquiring different vocabulary and comprehension skills. Literacy incorporates many forms such as fictional and informational texts. Literacy requires students to use unique reading, vocabulary, grammatical rules, and sentence structure skills to achieve the goal of comprehension within content literacy. The “teachers. . . must help students acquire the unique skills required to read [these different forms of literacy]” (McPherson, 2007, p. 65). Students who struggle within grade-level vocabulary and comprehension will most likely have a hard time grasping the content within content literacy itself. Students’ vocabulary and six major knowledge structures – description, classification,

Throughout my field experience this semester, I learned a lot about literacy learners and teaching/learning. From my final tutoring session, I learned that literacy instruction that works for one student may not necessarily work for another and that it is important to teach literacy instruction using a variety of techniques and strategies (Serravallo, 2015). First, I learned how important it is to cater literacy instruction to the individual student. I have learned about many great instructional strategies for teaching literacy but not all strategies are going to work for every student. It is important to select strategies that build on student strengths to support the student’s literacy needs (Serravallo, 2014). I also learned that a

Over the years there have been many theories and practices of teaching and learning literacy across preschool, elementary, middle and early high school. A few of the theories and practices of teaching and learning literacy are Freebody & Luke’s (1990) Four Resources Model, a cognitive-constructivist view of reading (Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2007), and a complex theory of the reading process (Clay, 2013).

Information literacy is very important in today’s world. Information literacy means that a person has the ability to understand when the information is necessary and that the person is able to find and then use that information. To be information literate, a person must be able to do the following: Assess how much information is needed, find that information, assess the information and make sure that its sources are reliable, use that information as intended, and make sure that the information is not used in a way that’s unethically or illegal.

Any Language Arts teacher can attest for the troubles, difficulties, and frustrations of advancing students’ reading skills. All too often, children arrive in classrooms behind grade level in vocabulary and reading comprehension. Furthermore, when students are behind grade level in reading comprehension it may negatively affect their performance in other subjects as well (Rasinki et al, 2012).

The theoretical framework is founded on the pretense that much has been written concerning the problems that many students have with the comprehension of reading materials, especially content texts--science, math, and social studies. Alexander (1988) suggested that these children may be those who have little trouble with their basal readers or trade books, yet are unable to derive meaning from what they read in content area textbooks.

Literacy is the cornerstone to all learning; it is imperative to future academic success. (Tracey and Morrow, 2012). Due to the significance of literacy instruction, there are a myriad of ways to teach literacy. Literacy is a complex subject, honing in on balancing reading, writing, speaking, and listening. As a result of the complexity of literacy instruction, we arrive at the age-old debate of what is the best literacy instruction. My philosophy of literacy instruction centralizes around the Whole Language Theory and Balanced Literacy; however, I also blend in additional theories/approaches to teach effective literacy.