Even when students have excellent reading instruction in the primary grades, there is no guarantee they will be successful readers as they progress through school. Skills required for content area reading are increasingly complex as students get into the higher grades. The skills need to be taught explicitly, although this rarely happens. Ten current articles are summarized that discuss reading in the content areas. Strategies for implementing skills in the classroom are outlined.
¶ … Instructional Strategies
Question answer strategy (QAR) teaches students how and when to use their texts when answering comprehension questions. Collaboration, specifically co-teaching, has been shown to be effective with special education teachers and content-area teachers in the general education classroom. The QAR strategy can enhance comprehension across different content areas.
Fenty, N.S., McDuffie-Landrum, K., and Fisher, G. (2012). Using collaboration, co- teaching, and question answer relationships to enhance content area literacy. Teaching Exceptional Children 44(6), pp. 28-37.
QAR is taught through five elements of effective instruction: anticipatory set, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and closure (Duke & Pearson, 2002, and Fisher & Frey, 2007, cited in Fenty et al., 2012).
Although word walls have been used traditionally in primary classrooms, the authors report effective use in the middle school. Over the course of year, a word wall was built by teachers and students in eighth that included vocabulary across content areas.
Yates, P.H., Cuthrell, K., Rose, M. (2011). Out of the room and into the hall: Making content word walls work. Clearing House 84(1), pp. 31-36.
The multi-content word wall could be built for any grade level, or multiple grade levels. Team members should meet initially to agree on procedures and guidelines for implementing and maintaining the wall.
Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a multi-strategy approach for teaching strategies for reading comprehension. CSR can also be effective when used with adolescent English language learners (ELLs) with learning disabilities. ELLs typically struggle when moving from the primary classroom, where the focus shifts from "learning to read" to "reading to learn;" text becomes increasingly complex.
Klingner, J.K., Boardman, A.G., Eppolito, A.M., Schonewise, E.A. (2012). Supporting adolescent English language learners' reading in the content areas. Learning Disabilities -- A Contemporary Journal 10(1), pp. 35-64.
The authors recommend three broad strategies that can be implemented in any school, at any grade level: create supportive, culturally responsive learning environments; support oral language development and vocabulary acquisition; and teach reading comprehension strategies (Klingner et al., 2012, p. 59).
Response to Intervention (RTI) is a tiered approach to instruction designed to provide high-quality instruction for all and to target struggling learners. Content literacy strategies, when successfully implemented at the elementary school level, can help children develop literacy and learning skills necessary to get information and understand concepts, ideally eliminating the need for Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports for the majority of students.
Brozo, W.G. (2010). The role of content literacy in an effective RTI program. Reading Teacher 64(2), pp. 147-150.
The author advocates establishment of the language arts curriculum on the premise of reading to learn. By increasing print encounters and experiences with informational text, teachers can show students that content learning and content literacy learning are "inseparable" (Bronzo, 2010, p. 148).
"All teachers are teachers of reading," (Greenwood, 2010, p. 223). Content area expertise is only part of the teacher's role. Several strategies have been proven effective when teaching reading to middle-level students. The author outlines principles for academic vocabulary instruction.
Greenwood, S.C. (2010). Content area readers: Helping middle-level students become word aware (and enjoy it!). Clearing House 83(6), pp. 223-229.
Teachers can provide direct instruction in one or more models of reading and vocabulary strategies: PAVE (predict, associate, verify, evaluate); the Frayer model (using attributes/non-attributes); concept circles; semantic mapping; and analogy games.
Constructivist learning theory holds that students learn by actively constructing knowledge. Tasks, or assignments, should be designed to make the content meaningful. "Authentic" tasks prepare students for real-world activities. They can enhance motivation and help build students' academic vocabularies.
Parsons, S.A., and Ward, A.E. (2011). The case for authentic tasks in content literacy. Reading Teacher 64(6), pp. 462-465.
Students often find little meaning in answering questions at the end of a textbook chapter. Students can be more engaged when asked to do a project in which they can apply their knowledge. They can present the results of their learning to their peers in the form of shared journals, a PowerPoint presentation, or other multi-media format.
Inquiry-based science instruction can be effective for developing content area knowledge and literacy. The authors explicitly taught students how to read expository text and incorporated the strategies of brainstorming and think-pair-share to facilitate greater student participation. They highlighted five components of a typical science lesson: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluation.
Connor, C.M., Kaya, S., Luck, M., Toste, J.R.,
Canto, A., Rice, D., Tani, N., and Underwood, P.S. (2010). Content area literacy: Individualizing student instruction in second-grade science. Reading Teacher 63(6), pp. 474-485.
Although the authors referenced a second grade classroom, the principles discussed can be applied across all grade levels. The five components are designed to help students make meaning of what they have learned by going deeper into the content and applying the knowledge.
Research-based strategies in content area literacy help students in all areas, not just the ones that rely heavily on printed materials. The author shares ten practical ideas to help students become critical thinkers and problem solvers, the ultimate goal for content area literacy.
Ming, K. (2012). 10 content-area literacy strategies for art, mathematics, music, and physical education. Clearing House 85(6), pp. 213-220.
The author's ideas can be incorporated into the four content areas in the article's title
The author points out that even excellent basic instruction in reading in the primary grades does not guarantee a student's future success. After third grade, students have "higher level literacy demands" (Biancarosa, 2012). Research suggests schools must focus on enabling students to master increasingly difficult texts, understand the distinctions among reading in different content areas, and read digital content.
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