“Many
content-area teachers believe that reading instruction is not their
responsibility. They did not receive the relevant training and generally feel
it is someone else’s role to teach reading skills. Although reading specialists
and special educators might in fact provide instruction for students who
struggle with basic reading skills such as decoding words and reading fluently,
it is nevertheless important for content-area teachers to integrate literacy
instruction into their classes” (iris.peabody.vanderbuilt.edu, 2016)
Page 2: Components of Effective vocabulary
This
section talked about how content area teachers assign new vocabulary, and just
ask for students to define and memorize it. I did learn more-effective
vocabulary instruction such as selecting essential words, explicitly defining
and contextualizing those words, helping students to actively process the
information, and providing multiple exposures to the words.
Page 7: Building Vocabulary and Conceptual
Knowledge Using the Frayer Model:
I have
never seen the Frayer Model before. It was a great resource to use, especially
in my fourth grade classroom. There are also examples of completed Frayer
Models for every content area. The two videos on page 7 were also extremely
helpful.
“The Frayer Model is not intended to be used as a worksheet for homework,
something that would be no more effective than asking students to simply look
up the definitions for a list of assigned words.”
Pages 8-13 had components of effective
comprehension instruction: activating prior knowledge, monitoring
comprehension, using graphic organizers, answering questions, and generating
questions. I did save the table on page 10 that had Examples of Fix-Up
strategies:
- Re-read the paragraph (silently or aloud)
- Look up unfamiliar terms
- Find more information (e.g., seek out electronic or print references, ask someone for help with an unfamiliar topic)
- Reference an adjacent graph, chart, or picture
- Reconstruct information in an equation, chart, image, concept map, etc.
- Search for upcoming headings that will provide clarification
I use a plethora of graphic organizers in my
classroom. Page 11 gave a couple of website links for me to explore, I
especially liked http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=49933#content. It gave Science graphic organizers, explained them, and even
had a rubric.
Lastly I was intrigued by page 12 that was the
topic of the article I read- Question Answer Relationship (QAR).
I
chose to read Fenty, McDuffie-Mandrum & Fisher’s (2012) article “Using
Collaboration, Co-Teaching, and Question Answer Relationships to Enhance Content
Area Literacy.” I mentioned the Question Answer Relationships (QAR) theory in
my discussion board without naming it. We use QAR in my school district and I
was interested in learning more about it. “QAR
is a literacy strategy that provides students with a framework to guide
their processing of comprehension questions frequently encountered after
reading a piece of text” (Fenty, N. McDuffie-Landrum, K., Fisher, G., 2012, p.
29).
QAR
teaches students that there are two ways to locate answers: in the book or in
my head. In the book means the answer is directly in the book. In my head means
the answer is beyond the text. These two types of questions are then further
broken down. In the book is broken down into an either right there or think and
search question. Right there means the answer is directly in one portion of the
text. Think and search means the answer can be found by assembling information
read throughout the text. In my head is broken up into author and me and on my
own. Author and me means that readers must use their background knowledge and
schema with information provided in the text. On my own is when readers
strictly use background knowledge to answer a question.
Fenty,
McDuffie-Landrum, and Fisher (2012) gave guidelines also to help plan QAR
instruction, specifically in special education classrooms. They state that QAR
will best work if taught through collaboration and co-teaching. They broke it
down into five steps for educators to follow: anticipatory set, modeling,
guided practice, independent practice, and closure. There are also great
sources for fiction and nonfiction texts on page 33 in Table 2. Table 3 on page 35 has sample questions for
teachers to preview and connections to Bloom’s Taxonomy.
“The QAR strategy can enhance
comprehension across a variety of content areas and can encourage the use of a
common language for strategy use throughout the school day” (Fenty, N. McDuffie-Landrum, K., Fisher, G., 2012, p. 37).
References
Fenty, N., 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.
Iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu, (2016). IRIS
| Seconday Reading Instruction (Part 1): Teaching Vocabulary and Comprehension
in the Content Areas. [online] Available at: http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sec-rdng/cresource/#content
[Accessed 15 Feb. 2016].
