Our students benefit when we are explicit about the literacy skills required to succeed in our discipline. Using small excerpts of disciplinary expert text can help enliven disciplinary thinking in your classroom and improve the text sets you may be currently using.
The Jigsaw strategy divides large amounts of text into manageable chunks that students work collaboratively to understand and explain to their classmates. It’s interactive, purposeful (e.g. read to become an expert), promotes student-led discussions, and is a fun way to learn!
How can content-area, non-reading-specialist teachers contribute to academic literacy? They can incorporate these five techniques throughout their lessons: (1) provide explicit instruction and supported practice in effective comprehension techniques, (2) increase the amount and quality of reading content discussions, (3) maintain high standards for text, conversation, questions, and vocabulary, (4) increase student motivation and engagement with reading, and (5) provide essential content knowledge to support student mastery of critical concepts. Find out why these strategies and the literacy areas they represent are so important.
While increased family involvement is linked to improved student performance, it is not always fully understood and examined within schools. Different types of involvement may include parenting, communicating with schools, volunteering at schools, supporting learning at home, participating in school governance and decision-making, and taking part in school-community collaborations. In order to encourage and foster this comprehensive involvement with all families, school administrators and teachers must develop mutual trust, consider the different cultural attitudes some families may have towards schooling, and be diligent in reaching out.
A Texas librarian shares his strategy of using nonfiction picture books to introduce new concepts to struggling adolescent readers and to build their background knowledge. Once students have been exposed to academic content in easy reading material, they are more confident in making the transition to textbooks.
If students haven't developed fluency — or "automaticity" — then reading can become slow, halting, and frustrating. When students are working so hard to get the words right, they can't focus on the meaning of the text. And if students haven't learned to read with appropriate expression, they might get through sentences quickly — yet not completely understand the meaning.
For ELLs, the challenges of going to college and finding the right opportunities can be overwhelming, but ELL teachers can play an important role helping students apply to college and preparing for the application process as well. This month’s Bright Ideas article offers some great ideas for ways that you can support ELL students as they consider their future plans.
Help students develop their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills? Expose kids to different types of literary voices and styles? All this, and more. And they are fun!
To close the gap between what is expected of a high school graduate and what the world beyond high school demands, state leaders will need to develop coherent policies that equate earning a high school diploma with being prepared for the demands of college and the workplace.
