Content Area Reading

Chapter 10

The ability to read well in a basal does not guarantee comprehension in

content areas.

Why?

• Content area reading has more specific and more difficult vocabulary.

• Narrative reading (stories) are easier to read that expository text.

• Students may lack background knowledge.

• Teachers should supply a number of books on different levels dealing with a topic.

Summary writing of content material is helpful.

• Writing everything you know about the topic and any questions you have about the topic helps to “establish set.”

• Turn each heading into a question. Then read to find the answer to that question and write it also.

• Write about inferences to be drawn from the text and creative reactions to the text.

Teaching reading during social studies, science, or math:

• Reading comprehension, studying strategies and specific reading study skills also must be taught.

• Graphic aids such as timelines, maps, flowcharts, graphs, and Venn diagrams help build and review difficult concepts.

Teaching content reading in primary grades:

• Use concrete manipulatives, require retellings, develop summaries, use visual imagery.

• Reflect the stages of reading defined by Jeanne Chall

Readability

• Approximate reading difficulty of material.

• Should match child with text readability.

• Sentence structure, organizational pattern, interest level, background knowledge of the students all determines readability.

• It is measured based on number of words in a sentence and number of syllables in a word.

Informal readability checklist:

• Teachers should use the formula, personal knowledge of the child, and informal check of the text:– understandability– learnability– reinforcement – motivation

More about predicting text difficulty.

• Collect outside the head information: word difficulty, sentence length, chapter headings and questions.

• Collect in the head information: word recognition ability and background knowledge.

Goal: Make students more independent readers

• Content reading is one skill needed to become an independent learner.– Specific skills and strategies– study skill instruction– knowing how to collect, organize and criticize

facts

5 Components to content reading:

• Vocabulary development

• studying strategies

• reading and study skills

• location skills

• critical reading skills

Vocabulary

• Crucial for comprehension (usually unfamiliar)

• Content area words are interrelated. If you don’t understand the primary words, the secondary words are impossible.

• Idiomatic and figurative expressions increase the difficulty.

• Understanding requires planned systematic instruction.

Making vocabulary stick:

• 1. Must be connected to known words.

• 2. Must be repeated. 6xs

• 3. Meaningful use.

• Visual aids: diagrams, flowcharts, outlines, maps and timelines.

• Examples of familiar words used in more difficult connotation: “A belt of irrigated land stretches almost all the way around the coast.”

Studying strategies

• Metacognition: knowing when it doesn’t make sense and making adjustments.

• Poor readers do not skim, scan, reread, plan ahead, take notes, or make inferences.

• Pre-reading strategies: review prior knowledge, relate it to the last chapter, discuss key vocabulary, predict what the chapter is about, see the patterns, set a purpose.

Know. . .Want to Know . . . Learned

• (Ogle, 1986) Keep in reading journal. Have students write individual responses and compare.

• Turn bold face heading into questions, read and answer these questions.

• If you can’t remember, reread that part.

• Find the author’s pattern

After reading:

• Check comprehension with questions at chapter’s end.

• Summarize key points.

• Study guides with key points.

• DRA After silent reading, answer the purpose questions.

• Semantic mapping

• Reciprocal teaching.

Reciprocal teaching

• Students focus on – summarizing– use different levels of thinking– clarify answers to questions– predict what comes next.– KWL: write what you learned and still need to

know.– Cooperative groups. End of the chapter activities

together.

Writing to learn:

• Writing helps the student to understand ideas better and enlarge schemata. (Holbrook, 1984) (Anderson, 1987)

• Model this activity with student dictated ideas that the teacher writes on the board.

• Use compare and contrast assignments for student to do independently.

Smith and Bean 1980

• 1. Students write 2 paragraphs after pre-reading discussion.

• 2. After silent reading, make revisions.

•

• Have student interview historical figures in social studies.

How to reach the extremes in reading ability:

• Use multi-level text. Provide taped oral reading of text. Use videos, audio tapes, and computer programs with content information, assign different level library books, incorporate the arts in instruction.

SQ3R

• Read the introduction

• Survey all visual aids

• Read the summary

• Study the questions

• Return to the beginning and read the text.

New basal readers:

• Include content area reading with– strategies– skills– content knowledge– Practice materials with both narrative and

expository writing.

Meaningful practice

• Teachers must provide practice time to promote transfer of a particular skill.

• Interesting, varied practice is need for transfer of a skill to content materials.

• Location skills: Index, contents, glossary, and appendix. Use a book mining exercise to quickly get information.

Library

• Research techniques are taught here.

• Reference materials:– Encyclopedia: ABC order, cross listings and

key words.– Map reading skills are necessary.

Critical reading skills:

• Analyzing and evaluating information is necessary after you have found the information.

• Interpreting and evaluating requires systematic practice.

Critical reading involves:• 1. Knowing what the author said.

• 2. Knowing when and how to verify the information.

• 3. Deciding facts from opinions.

• 4. Identifying Inferences

• 5. Detect author bias; satire, humor, irony.

• 6. Understanding your own bias.

• 7. Criteria for judging author’s competence.

Instructional activities:

• Identifying propaganda techniques

• Analyzing editorials, political cartoons,

• Distinguishing between fact and opinion.