Literacy in the Classroom

1. Literacy in the Classroom RAMS In-service , October 12, 2009

2. Please create a caption!

3. Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas? • Students do not have the skills to read and comprehend content-based text. • Skills needed depend on the content and text.

4. Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas? • If all teachers provide reading opportunities for students, students will be better prepared to meet identified standards in all areas.

5. Why Is Reading Important in the Content Areas? • Background knowledge and content provide an essential link between what students understand and what they read.

6. Why Is Writing Important in the Content Areas? • In combined writing and reading instruction, learners engage in a greater society of experiences that lead to better reasoning and higher-level thinking than is achieved with either process alone.

7. Why Is Writing Important in the Content Area? • Thinking is a critical part of meaning construction • Meaning construction through reading and writing will produce better thinkers.

8. Why Is Writing Important in the Content Area? • 95% of what you are teaching today, your students will forget within 6 months. •  If kids WRITE something about what they have just learned, students will retain 90% of what you teach.

9. Reflection on Literacy

11. Penn Literacy Network • Explore strategies and concepts for increasing student reading and writing proficiency.

12. Penn Literacy Network • 5 Critical Experiences • Transacting with Text • Composing Texts • Extending Reading and Writing • Investigating Language • Learning to Learn

13. Penn Literacy Network • 4 lenses for Looking at the Curriculum • Meaning centered • Social • Language Based • Human

14. The Four Lenses Learning

15. What does a PLN classroom look like? Social Lens • Whose voice is heard in the classroom? • Are students given opportunity to share? • Do they work with peers to share/refine thinking?

16. What does a PLN classroom look like? Language-Based Lens • Are students reading/writing for various purposes? • Are students generating original text?

17. What does a PLN classroom look like? Meaning-Based Lens • Can students find meaning in material? • Are they able to connect the topic with their own lives?

18. What does a PLN classroom look like? Human Lens • Each student has a chance to respond in a way that will be unique??

19. Theme = Student as ACTIVE Learner • If the teacher is doing all the work, you’re working too hard! • Learning is infinite (teacher  student). • Teacher should model learning.

20. Do your students… • know why they are being asked to read a given text? • apply prior knowledge and experience to the reading? • look for typographic and text structure cues to help them identify critical elements?

21. Do your students… • ask themselves questions while they are reading? • exhibit vocabulary to enable them to concentrate on ideas and concepts in the reading? • appear engaged rather than bored during reading assignments?

22. An Effective Model of Engagement Independent Activity Pair Share Whole Group, Mini lesson, lecture, etc. Independent or Small Group Whole Class Independent Activity

23. Discussion Strategies • Bloom's Taxonomy Questioning • Creative Debate • Discussion Groups • Discussion Web • Inferential Strategy • Intra-Act • Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) • Radio Reading • Reciprocal Questioning (ReQuest) • Seed Discussion • Think Pair Share

24. Active Reading Strategies • Anticipation/Reaction Guide • Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) • Embedded Questions • Jot-Charting • Know/Want to Know/Learned (KWL) • Predict/Locate/Add/Note (PLAN) • Pre-Reading Plan (PreP) • Problematic Situation • Reciprocal Teaching • Response Journal • Strategy Log • Summarizing • Survey/Question/Read/Recite/Review (SQ3R) • Think Aloud • Three-Level Guide • Visual Imagery

25. Vocabulary Strategies • Concept Definition Mapping • Contextual Redefinition • Dictionary Game • Frayer Model • List/Group/Label • Possible Sentences • Rivet • Semantic Feature Analysis • Semantic Webbing • Stephens Vocabulary Elaboration Strategy (SVES) • Structured Notes • Student VOC Strategy • Word Analogies • Word Sort

26. Organization Strategies • Charting Text Structure • CONCEPT Diagram • Content Frame • Graphic Organizer • Idea-Map • ORDER • Proposition/Support Outline • Record/Edit/Synthesize/Think (REST) • Two-Column Notes

27. Models for Human Learning “Life skills today mean reading critically, applying knowledge, asking questions, finding answers, and knowing what to do with what we find. It is communicating – by spoken word, written word, and electronic message. It’s knowing how to sort out the important from the unimportant, the significant from the insignificant, what’s true from what’s not. It’s having the ability to think for yourself rather than having someone do it for you – and there are many who are happy to do so, from the salesman to the politician…

28. Models for Human Learning “We must help them be ready – by model, by practice, by design. They need to know how to seek, to find, and to use for themselves before they leave us. It has to be our goal and our practice.” Mel Levine 2002

29. Transacting with the Text builds Effective Learners! Talking TO the text + Talking ABOUT the text _______________________ = Ownership of the text MEANING + LANGUAGE + SOCIAL + HUMAN

30. Keys to Developing Successful Readers Motivation Purpose Habit Reflection Sharing Connecting Strategies Re-reading Chunking Choice

31. Final Thoughts

32. “Meaning doesn’t arrive because we have highlighted text or used sticky notes or written the right words on a comprehension worksheet. Meaning arrives because we are purposefully engaged in thinking while we read.” CrisTovani Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12. (2004)

34. Good Resources • http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/ • http://www.readwritethink.org/