Content Area Literacy Guide KDE Website

School-wide LiteracyTodd County Middle SchoolSeptember 21. 2012 Betsy.madison@grrec.ky.gov

Whats our goal?

All Students College and Career ReadyWhats our goal with our students?2The TRUTH about CCRTelling Really Useful Things Honestly Typical 1st semester Freshman Course Load Requirements

3The Reality: TEXTBOOKSSample 15-hour college freshman semester

4Two Major Problems

Significant numbers of students read so poorly that they are unlikely to have access to full participation in American society

Significant numbers of students who are deemed literate are not sufficiently literate to succeed in college or career

Lets discuss two major problems that are currently prevalent in our society:

25% of 8th and 12th graders read at below basic levels (NAEP, 2005); Basic level: decoding and knowledge of high-frequency words

Only about 50% of students entering college are equipped to handle the reading assignments of beginning college classes (ACT, 2006)

5 Some Solutions have beenEnhancements to early literacy instruction

According to NAEP, there have been clear reading improvements among fourth-graders since 1992.

And yet, middle school students are reading no better than then (and high school students appear to have fallen)

Solutions have been instituted to address the literacy needs of our students, but6 Some Solutions (cont)Avoiding Text

Since 1990 there have been content (knowledge) standards in history, science, mathematics, English language arts and teachers have found ways of getting info to students without texts (e.g., Powerpoint, video)

But, ACT has found that the amount of text reading between 7th and 12th grades was the best preparation of later success 7Some Solutions (cont)Reducing Text Difficulty

Low readability textbooks are a staple (educators have lowered readability levels of textbooks for more than 70 years)Research has documented correlation between lowered textbook difficulty and lowered SAT performances

ACT study found not only was amount of in class reading significant, but that this reading had to be implemented with hard text (not easy text)Shananhan presentation at SREB meeting

8ultimately, our students are expected to develop as competent readers, writers, and thinkers in all academic disciplines. ability to read, write, and think in ways that are characteristic of discrete academic disciplines

Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Doug BuehlWe must remember that

Districts and schools must be aware of the shift demands of the ELA and Literacy CCSS adopted by Kentucky and that these shifts must be addressed and implemented within the content areas.Classroom teachers will need support in order to effectively make the transition9Who is responsible for LITERACY?While the English language arts classroom has often been seen as the proper site for literacy instruction, this document acknowledges that the responsibility for teaching such skills must also extend to other content areas.

www.corestandards.org

Look at Reading Standards and Literacy in.Standards10What can we do?Reading must be authentic (related to what you will do tomorrow)Reading must be purposeful (you must be responsible for something in class)Comprehension strategies must be woven into content

Adolescent Literacy StrategiesMonitoring for MeaningUse Schema (Prior Knowledge)InferAsk QuestionsCreate ImagesDetermine ImportanceSynthesize Information12Content Area Literacy Guide KDE WebsiteExplains Need for Adolescent Literacy Instruction in All Content Areas

Describes Literacy Instruction in Content Areas

Contains various literacy instructional activities with the description, purpose, and directions for use in each core content areahttp://www.education.ky.gov/nr/rdonlyres/2d670309-9a31-427e-a85e-712fd1f2bc15/0/ccsso_contentliteracy.pdf

This is an excellent resource for all content areas13Ask Questions

Look at Blooms Critical Thinking Cue Questions14Students asking QuestionsTeachers take up to two-thirds of the classroom talk time. Students are talk-deprived (Alvermann et al., 1996)

Student discussion increases retention as much as 50%. (Sousa, 2001)

15How can music help bridge generations?Conversation Questions, Two-Column Notes - VideoWork in groups of 3Video will be chunked (stopped) at 3 places. At each chunk, group writes 3 or 4 questions on Video Notes Organizer. Each person needs a copy. (3:30 per chunk)

Total of 10 questions- 4 may be closed (number your questions)Closed question has only one answer: What kind of teeth did George Washington have? Open question has more than one answer: What was life like before modern dentistry?

Banjo PlayersStop video at 50 seconds and at 1min 30 seconds16Text Annotation, Two-Column Notes - Articles

Read your article. --When you see information that answers one of your questions, underline the information. In the margin, write the number of the question. --If you see important information that helps answer the main guiding question, underline it and annotate.

Articles are chunked (stopped) at various places. (4 min. each chunk)

At each chunk, group stops reading and discusses answers or important information that they found and fill out two-column note organizer. (4 min.)

Half of the groups read 1 articleHalf read the other

17Share InformationPair with a person who has the other article. Take turns: Summarize each chunk. Share questions, answers to questions, important information for each chunk. Add information to your Notes organizer. (10 min.)

18How can music help bridge generations?Students could now write a constructed response to the guiding question.

or

Students could research and read more and write an essay response to the question.Discuss Thinking in Threes?19Reflect on LessonWhich Common Core Literacy Standard(s)/learning targets did we meet?20How can you improve the questions YOU ask?

Text Dependent Questions80-90% of the Reading Standards require Text-Dependent analysis.Text Dependent questions can only be answered by close reading of the text.Text Dependent questions are not recall questions. They require inference.

Text Dependent QuestionsText Dependent Non-Text DependentHow did Frederick Douglass ability to read contribute to his emotional struggle for freedom? Cite examples from the text to support your answers.In what ways does America represent the hope for freedom that lived in the heart of Frederick Douglas?Betsy23Wait TimeThink Time--Write TimeTalk TimeWhen 3 or more seconds of Wait Time is giventhe length and correctness of student responses increases.the number of I dont know and no answer responses decreases.the number of volunteered, correct answers increases.

When 3 or more seconds of Wait Time is given.teacher questions are more varied and flexiblethe quantity of questions decreases and the quality increasesteachers ask add on questions requiring higher-level thinking and processing

Think Time3 second minimumInstruct students to take a thinking moment before you either open the floor for answers or, better yet, you choose a student to respond.Write the question on the board, while students are thinking, for visual learnersProvides the students with a time of reflection and rehearsal

Write TimeI dont know what I think until I write it down. (Norman Mailer)

Especially helpful for tactile/kinesthetic learnersIts not specifically the writing that helps the learningWriting is an active, rather than passive, taskWriting involves more of the whole body in the process of thinkingWriting clarifies perspectives

Talk TimeIf you have to talk, you have to think.

The importance of dialogic talk By the age of 4, the child of professional parents in the US will have had nearly twice as many words addressed to it as the working-class child, and over four times as many as a child on welfare. For the middle-class child, encouragement from parents vastly outweighs discouragement; but for the child on welfare the climate of adult reaction is an overwhelmingly discouraging one. While talk is essential for intellectual and social development, for some children, the talk which they engage in at school is nothing less than a lifeline. (Robin Alexander, 2004)Opportunity to hear a perhaps more correct answerRehearsal time27Right is RightWhats the difference between pretty good and 100% correct?

How do you respond to almost right answers?

Turn and Talk28Right is RightMany teachers respond to almost-correct answers by rounding up. They affirm and repeat the answer, adding the details to make it fully correct. Most students stop processing when they hear the word right.What does this communicate about the standard of correctness in your classroom?Whos doing the cognitive work?

Engaging Students in Effective QuestionsTeachers cannot teach (and students cannot learn) everything there is to know. (Brookhart, 2009)

Authentic QuestionsChange in thinking shift for teachers. If Luke wants to know how to create a specific movie clip, he goes to you tube for a how to We all use Wiki pedia, even though we seem to have issue about students using it. Knowledge of content is at our fingers tips. How do create situations or environments where students want to know something so much that they engineer questions and go find the answer.