I N S T R U C TI O N A L S T R A T E G

I E S

Addressing the Literacy Crisis: Teaching Reading in the Content Areas Mary

Lee Barton

We are not helping students acquire the strategic reading skills they will need to cope with the

ever-increasing

demands of the market-

place. Administrators, teachers, and parents need to make literacy a top priority and reading skills must be incorporated into courses across

the curriculum.

n 1994, one quarter of our nation’s high school seniors and nearly a third of our eighth graders failed to reach even the basic level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment. Most of our students lack critical reading skills; few read regularly. Stedman and Kaestle (1991) report that an alarming portion of the population-from 15 to 30 percent has difficulty reading common text: news articles, maps, report

cards,

coupons,

recipes,

even

medicine directions.

is that we are becoming an increasingly aliterate read do not. Statistics reveal that most of the books read in the United States-some 80 percent-are read by about 10 percent of the population (Cullinan, 1987).

Equally disturbing

society: Those who

can

Furthermore, as reading researcher Jeanne Chall of Harvard University points out, as the nature of our economy changes from an industrial, manufacturing base to a technological knowledge base, our students will need an even higher proficiency in reading and writing. The CEOs of major corporations are calling for higher literacy standards to meet future demands. If students are unable to read at these higher levels, they will have

difficulty finding

rent

and

holding

a

job.

schools meet the challenge of improving literacy? In curpractice, reading skills are generally taught at the elementary level. How

Mary Lee Barton

can

Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory

is communications specialist at the in Aurora, Colo.; she also trains teachers in how to teach reading in the content may continue the dialogue on the Internet at [email protected].

22

areas.

Readers

Once students reach the middle

from

learning reading

to

level, they are expected to make the leap topics and story format of basal read-

read via the familiar

to obtain information from content areas texts that present information organized in entirely different ways. Instruction shifts from teaching students the process of reading to focusing on the content of the text (Anthony and Raphael, 1989). ers to new

A common complaint of middle level and high school teachers is that students do not know how to read content area texts. Frustrated by their students’ apparent lack of critical reading skills-and not sufficiently

trained in

teaching content area reading strategies, themselves-many telling their students what they need to know rather than them to read the text (Billmeyer, 1996). Making literacy a top prirequiring ority means reading skills must be incorporated into courses across the curriculum throughout the middle school and high school years. To achieve this goal, teachers need to be skilled in content area reading strategies as well as in their content area. Unfortunately, many have not been trained how to teach strategic informational reading skills. Yet, learning how to incorporate these strategies in content area subjects can have a tremendous payoff. For example, a study by O’Mara (1981) indicatteachers

ed that

resort to

35 percent of the errors made on math achievement have been the result of reading problems.

some

actually

tests

may

In Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, Then Who? educational consultant Rachel Billmeyer addresses two areas in which content area teachers need to become proficient: what strategic reading is, and how to

incorporate effective strategies

What

into their curriculum to

Reading Strategically

improve literacy.

Is...and Isn’t

reading used to be viewed as a simple decoding process, the readpassively receiving information contained in the text, reading is now more accurately viewed as a dynamic process in which the reader works actively to construct meaning. Effective readers read strategically: They adjust their reading to fit the type of text and employ specific tactics that will help them if they encounter confusing text passages. Effective readers actively pursue meaning and carry on a mental dialogue with the writer. Whereas er

An ideal reader’s mind, is alive with questions:

or

mental

o

What is this

-

How does that fit with what I

-

What is the author

o

What is going

-

What does the author mean?&dquo;

text

to

disposition,

about?

trying

happen

to

already know? say?

next?

(Billmeyer, 1996) 23

Ineffective

readers,

on

the other

hand,

are unaware

that

they

have

any role to play in comprehending and learning from texts. They read text material as if it were completely unconnected to what they already know. They read as if all texts were structured in an identical fashion. Perhaps most unfortunate-because research suggests that lower achievers in particular can benefit from strategy instruction (Palincsar and Brown, 1984; Wong, 1985; Duffy et al., 1987; Dole, Brown, and Trathen, 1996)-these learners are unaware of strategies they can use to help themselves better understand what they read.

What these learners need teachers need

to

become

strategic readers-and what them-is instruction in strategies that

provide help them access and use background knowledge, edge, and metacognitive knowledge. content area

to

will

text

feature knowl-

Background Knowledge Prior knowledge plays a crucial role in text comprehension. Strategic readers bring to the task enough accurate background knowledge to make sense of what they read. Prior knowledge acts as a framework through which the reader filters new information and attempts to make sense of what is read. It also acts as a kind of mental Velcro to which the reader can attach new information. Research indicates that when students’ or background knowledge is well-developed and accurate, they understand and remember more of what they read (Anthony and Raphael, 1989).

bring a variety of experience and prior knowledge to class. teachers should employ an array of pre-reading Therefore, that will strategies help them activate, assess, and extend each student’s level of prior knowledge. One such strategy is the anticipation guide. Originally conceived by Herber (1978), anticipation guides can be structured in a variety of ways. Typically, it consists of five or more teacher-prepared, true-false statements related to the topic under study. These statements should center on the major concepts and issues in the reading. How students respond to these statements will show the teacher which students need more background Students

content area

knowledge

to

understand the

text.

Student responses can also guide the teacher in correcting any misperceptions students might have. Revising these misperceptions can have a

profound effect on student comprehension,

as studies have shown that readoverlook text information if it disagrees with their misinterpret however inaccurate (Anderson and Smith, 1984). background information, ers

will

or

A properly designed anticipation guide can also motivate reluctant readers to want to know more about the topic. If the statements include some that challenge students to examine their beliefs and/or might be cause for

24

debate, soliciting student responses to the statements can provoke animated discussion prior to reading. For example, before assigning a text passage on civil

rights, a social studies teacher might construct statements that include the following: &dquo;U.S. citizens have the right to express their beliefs in any manner they choose,&dquo; and &dquo;The use of quotas is an effective method for ensuring that colleges and universities treat applicants fairly.&dquo; When students debate their answers with the rest of the class, they become engaged in the subject and are more likely to approach the reading assignment with enthusiasm. Another simple, yet effective pre-reading strategy is DRTA, or the Directed Reading/Thinking Activity (Moore, Readence, and Rickelman, 1982). DRTA not only guides students to activate what they know about the topic; it also asks them to hypothesize about what might be addressed in and establish purposes for reading. Similar to the K-W-L (What Do I Know? What Do I Want to Know? What Did I Learn?) strategy devised by Ogle (1986), students chart their answers to a series of questions about the topic. Before they read a particular passage, students answer &dquo;What do you know you know about this topic?&dquo; and &dquo;What do you think you know?&dquo; As students answer these questions, they activate their prior knowledge about the concepts covered in the text passage. From their responses, teachers can assess each student’s level of prior knowledge and supplement it accordingly. If students work collaboratively to answer these questions, students with extensive background knowledge help inform those students who may not know much about the topic. the

text

DRTA also asks students to

predict &dquo;What do you think you will they will learn helps students clarify

learn?&dquo; Discussing what they think their purpose for reading the passage.

they continually confirm, revise, the

or

Then, as students read the passage, reject the predictions they made about

reading. Once students have finished

reading the assigned text, they answer &dquo;What do know question, you you learned?&dquo; Obviously, this part students review activity helps important new concepts and revise existing schema. final of the a

Text Feature

Knowledge being

In addition to

edge, strategic increase their

lary, as

and

text

readers

use

able

to access

their expertise in

comprehension. Text features structure (Billmeyer, 1996).

sufficient

background knowl-

with text features to include reader aids, vocabu-

working

Strategic readers preview the text to examine how reader aids such headings, bold-faced print, and graphics are used. Teachers can help stu-

dents read

more

strategically by showing them how writers use graphic aids 25

key points, their relationships, and the relative importance of each. Teaching students a simple strategy such as Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review, or SQ3R (Robinson, 1961), can help students analyze entire passages before reading. Strategic readers also know how to attack content area vocabulary. They understand that it plays a different role than vocabulary used in literature-based text. They also know what to do if they come across unfamiliar words as they read informational text. There are several reasons why vocabulary study is critical to content area reading. First, the vocabulary used in content area textbooks often repto

indicate

the major concepts that students need to grasp to understand the unit study. These words may have entirely different meanings in different content areas. For example, the meaning of the term product as used in mathematics differs significantly from its meaning in economics, and the term legend is interpreted differently in language arts than it is in geography. resents

of

Second, vocabulary contained in content area reading may represent entirely new concepts for students, e.g., metacognition or photosynthesis.

Finally, content area vocabulary differs from vocabulary used in litreading in that content area terms are often semantically relat-

erature-based

e.g., root, radicand, and exponent (Armbruster and Nagy, 1992). If a student does not understand the vocabulary used in the text, he or she may miss pivotal concepts.

ed,

To

students read

strategically, teachers should provide students with a variety of ways to learn new vocabulary prior to their reading. They also need to equip students with procedures they can use when they come across an unfamiliar term when they are reading independently. Having students use glossaries and dictionaries to look up, define, and memorize vocabulary words is common in many content area classes; however, as Billmeyer (1996) explains, this method simply does not work. It isolates the study of vocabulary from the exploration of the subject matter. Consequently, students see no relevance to learning these words. Because the vocabulary is taken out of context, students may not understand the definition given in the dictionary and merely copy the first definition they find to satisfy the requirements of the assignment. Conversely, students will see the relevance and understand the connotations of content area vocabulary if they observe their teacher actually using these words in context. For example, learning the meanings of the words permeable, membrane, and miosis is much easier and more meaningful if the science teacher illustrates their meaning during a lab experiment.

help

Students also need to understand how content area terms are conceptually related. Methods such as semantic feature analysis (Johnson and

Pearson, 1984) and the Frayer Model (Frayer, Frederick, and Klausmeier, 26

1969) teach students how to analyze the meanings of content area terms by noting their similarities and differences. As students identify each concept’s major attributes, chart them, and then analyze how they compare with one another and with other known concepts, semantically related content area terms.

they discern

the

nuances

between

unfamilTeaching strategies such vocabulary as the Vocabulary Process Strategy (Marzano et al., 1991) can help them attack unfamiliar words. In this strategy, students are instructed to use context clues, look at the word’s parts (i.e., prefixes, suffixes, root), ask another person, and think about similar words or prior experiences they may have had with the word. If they need to verify their definition, or if they still have no idea of the word’s meaning, then students are told to use a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, or glossary. To retain what they have learned, students are instructed to create a mental picture of the word’s meaning.

Strategic readers know what in content

iar

In addition to

and

use

area text.

to

do when

they

come across

at-risk students

possessing vocabulary skills, strategic readers recognize text (e.g.,

the different structural patterns found in informational

comparison/contrast, problem/solution, chronological, proposition/support) to help them understand and organize new information. Teaching students to understand informational text structures is essential; studies of text structure knowledge have shown that strategic readers who understand text organization comprehend better and recall more information than readers who do not (Meyer, Brandt, and Bluth, 1980). Graphic organizers such as cause and effect circles, comparison/contrast diagrams, concept mapping, and sequencing can be powerful tools to help students work with informational text patterns. Students visually organize what they read and see the relationships between new information and what they already know. Billmeyer (1996) recommends teaching students informational text frames through a series of mini-lessons. In addition to training students how to recognize each pattern in textbooks, news articles, and other informational text, teachers should reinforce student learning by requiring them to use

these patterns in class writing assignments.

Metacognitive Knowledge Strategic readers possess a variety of text-processing strategies that help them plan, monitor, control, and evaluate their reading. This knowledge might be labeled &dquo;metacognitive knowledge&dquo; because it requires readbe aware of and adjust their thinking processes as they read. Vacca and Vacca (1993) identify a number of metacognitive skills that strategic readers possess: They can recognize when problems in understanding occur, identify what is wrong and why the problem is occurring, identify ers to

27

what

strategies might remedy the problem, select and apply the most appropriate strategy, and decide whether or not the strategy has been successful or

if another is needed. can teachers help students be aware of their reading processes them when necessary? First, teachers should pose not only con-

How

and

correct

questions but also process questions during the reading activity. While questions are concerned with the facts and ideas presented in the passage, process questions focus on the strategies students are using while they read. Process questions ask students to make predictions, confirm or tent

content

disconfirm those graphic aids that

predictions, and note characteristics of the text such as signal important ideas (Niles, 1985). If students are consistently prompted to focus on their reading process, comprehension monitoring will improve. Another way teachers can illustrate how to read strategically is by modeling their mental processes as they read. Using the &dquo;think aloud&dquo; strategy (Davey, 1983), the teacher reads a challenging passage from the text out loud, modeling for students what to do when they run into difficulty. As their teacher models different coping strategies (e.g., making predictions, verbalizing confusing points, linking prior knowledge to new information, and using fix-up strategies to correct reading problems), students learn what metacognitive skills are and how they can be used to enhance comprehension. In sum, students who learn how to use background knowledge, text feature knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge skillfully will become strategic readers. As Billmeyer notes, however, &dquo;Improvements in higher-level reading skills cannot come about simply by an emphasis on reading instruction in isolation from the other work students do in school. Students must

learn

read in all

&dquo;

Every teacher must be a reading teacher.&dquo; Fortunately, training teachers in strategic reading skills need not be a time-consuming staff development process. Relatively brief, experiential training can inform teachers about what strategic reading is and equip them with a variety of effective tools designed to improve student literacy. Billmeyer’s training manual, for example, contains clear direction in strategic reading for content area teachers as well as 40 strategies developed by to

content areas.

reading experts that can be easily incorporated in content area curriculum. Teaching reading in the content areas has the potential to improve student achievement and our nation’s literacy levels. A commitment by educators to teaching reading across the curriculum will benefit students not only while they are in our charge, but will extend long after their formal education ends. information on training teachers in content area reading skills, contact the Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory, (303) 337-0900 or For

by e-mail 28

more

at

infoC~mcrel.org.

-B

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