Improving Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking Skills in Middle School Students

CCSS and teachers together need to be viewed as “sponsors of literacy” (99). Scherff discovered that her teaching strategies already fit into the CCSS, which inspired her to develop a chart including critical and higher-order questions and discussion starters along with the CCSS nine anchor reading standards questioning approaches for each level. Two doctoral candidates were asked to collaborate and describe how the CCSS fits into their role as teachers. The first candidate, Allison Wynhoff Olsen describes her initial fear of the standards and how to implement them in her classroom. Her mentor showed her how to bundle and combine aspects that met CCSS. It is important to work with the standards because “educators have agency to help all students work toward powerful literacy education” (104). Olsen introduces Simon’s article “Starting with What Is’: Exploring Response and Responsibility to Student writing through Collaborative Inquiry” to show a new way of reviewing student papers collaboratively with other teachers instead of “individually from a deficit perspective” (105). This kind of approach encourages students to more freedom to express themselves and create a “broader social change” (105). Teachers must incorporate the CCSS in their classroom; however, they must also take into consideration the needs of each student and adjust their teaching strategies to reach the common goal of promoting literacy. The second candidate, Emily Nemeth describes two students demonstrating different learning styles and how teachers needs to keep in mind the needs of each unique student when designing classroom plans following the CCSS. She stresses the importance of supporting preservice teachers with “theoretical and pedagogical framings” to accompany the CCSS they must abide by in the classroom (109). The CCSS fails to take

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

Shared book reading focuses on developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement to enhance student literacy achievement. The teacher selects a text and reads it aloud to a student and/or group of students. The shared book reading program allows the teacher to model reading strategies, increase alphabetic skills, and activate and increase comprehension skills through targeted questions, prompts, and strategies. During the reading the teacher prompts students with strategic prompts and/or questions to engage the students in the text. Moreover, the teacher directs the students to key elements within the pictures, words, and/or text features. The teacher tailors the shared reading experience to meet the needs of the participants (International Reading Association Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Committee, 2012). Hence, educators are able to alter prompts, questions, and strategies to enhance the learning needs of

In every school across America, effective practices of reading instruction are being discussed. Calkins (2012) suggests that over 85% of students being tested on grade level literacy standards are non-proficient. Research suggests that students, who are unable to read proficiently by third grade, are not predicted to ever learn to read or have successful lives when they reach adulthood (Martinez, 2008). For these reasons, it is important that districts implement literacy models and instructional reforms that have been well researched and shown to be successful. The instructional reform method of Balanced Literacy is being used throughout the country to meet the challenging standards of the Common Core. Teachers will need

According to CMS Superintendent Ann Clark regarding literacy as our North Star, it “is the most important skill we teach. Literacy is the foundation for academic success from pre-kindergarten through high school.” Literacy is key to achieving academic success and the responsibility of literacy encompasses every educator and discipline. Many media coordinators have been trained in Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and district adopted reading initiatives, such as Balanced Literacy and Reading Apprenticeship. However, most struggle with linking our programs with literacy initiatives. According to the 2015 Nation’s Report Card percentages of fourth graders and eighth graders reading on grade level continues to decline, especially among urban school districts (nationsreportcard.gov). “That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.” (National Assessment of Educational Progress). And, furthermore, principals are trading media coordinator positions at an alarming rate as evidenced by the more than 30 schools which no longer

Opposers believe that high school English students should all have the same reading curriculum because it will ensure that they are reading

In my opinion, getting rid of reading will continue to be a problem unless we do something about it. Getting rid of reading will put many teachers out of jobs and will cause overflow inside classes. This solution of petitioning is one of the best ways to get community and governmental attention to end a problem and most likely to succeed. This solution of petitioning would have at least twenty or more signatures and the principle would talk to the board about. The students of the school would continue to work happy (or not) at their own pace. Therefore, in my opinion, we should save reading by petitioning on the problem and

But I think otherwise, I believe that students should have the opportunity to read the book. Students should be open to new book to read everyday. They should be able to go find any book and be able to read that book without someone telling them that they can’t. All students should have the opportunity to read any book at anytime during the school year. Their teacher shouldn't tell them that they cannot read the book because the district doesn't want them to. It only wouldn't be fair to the student as for the rest of the school. People have their own opinions and their one person’s opinion could be very powerful. One parent could change the way that their child learns because they don't like the way that they are teacher them. They could go tell the school board and have them change the way that they teach their son or daughter in school. They could change what books that they read or what teacher that they have. All kids should have an equal opportunity to read any book that he or she

The article talks about how teachers get lost in the curriculum and don't think they have time to teach reading or that it's "not their job," and I feel like this is true for some of the teacher's that are still teaching in school. More recently though, I feel like schools and colleges are helping prepare teachers to help the students who need help with reading by reading aloud and having students silently read or follow along and suggests that teachers try other activities to help students. Seeing some students struggle with reading in subjects outside of the ELA classrooms need to be addressed and modified too, because like the article said, there's a lot of students who aren't fluent readers and then eventually check out of school which creates a whole new set of problems. Us as future teachers need to think of or learn ways that we can help these students instead of ignoring the issue and moving past it with lessons from the

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)

Reading is one of the most beneficial activities a man can do. Out of reading, man can be able to discover new things, concepts, places and people. More so, reading is a way to relax our mind and soul, going deeply through the world of story and improves our thinking and internalization process.

According to (Critical literacy practices, 2011) “critical reading” is a type of literacy practice that is learning practice in which students analyze and critique language and power relationships within written texts. Many college freshmen are not prepared for critical reading, yet a lot of higher education organizations and levels do not require individual critical reading courses. Even though critical reading is an often-cited neutral topic in some different colleges structured reading courses. In many different colleges, at times, there is little to no research that exists that may also describe how composition instructors teach critical reading strategies. No matter the subject or the age of the reader. An overall reading goal for critical readers includes reading an article to comprehend information based on what was stated within the text. While readers read to gain understanding from the text, the readers also use additional information at times such as factual ideas, prior knowledge, and also context clues to understand the difficult text. There are many ways to become a “critical reader” which includes different types of reading strategies.

Reading develops a person’s creativity. Unlike movies where everything is determined by the producer, writer and director, books allow students to create in their minds how a particular character looks like or imagine how a scene plays out.

When defining the term “critical thinking” it can seem overwhelming and daunting, especially for young learners. In laments terms, you are teaching your student how to think for him or herself when it comes to problem solving. Instead of giving the student the answer, you give them the tools to discover the answer him/herself. Critical thinking is an important component of any classroom. No matter the age group, these skills stay with a child for the rest of his or her life. As a teacher, it is important to understand what critical thinking pertains to and how to structure part of your lesson plan around developing critical thinking skills.