Questions+Teachers+Have

== More than 50% of teachers do not know about current research-based Content Area Literacy methods, and of those who have been taught these in undergraduate or graduate school, few are using them (Spor & Schneider, 1999). ==

What is Content Area Literacy?
People usually think of the term reading involving an acquisition of strategies to help successfully complete schooling. The term literacy deals more with the breadth of education needed to function in modern life. In our world today, the acquisition of large amounts of information is not as important as the effective strategies for obtaining and evaluating the information, problem solving, and communicating. **Content Area Literacy** is an emergent field that shifts the focus from reading as an isolated function towards its role in higher-order thinking and communication.

Whose job is it anyway?
Most children do master the decoding part of reading by around 4th grade. At each higher level, the material becomes more difficult and includes more technical vocabulary and language forms. Learning to read is a process that continues as long as one continues to learn.
 * 1. Why don't student's know how to read by the time they get to my class?** Don't make the mistake of confusing learning to read as just decoding (or translating the squiggles we call letters into the sounds we call words). Reading is more than this translation and includes constructively comprehending or making meaning from print. **Reading Comprehension** is generally defined as follows (Manzo, Manzo, & Thomas 2009):
 * //Understanding// the author's intended message (reading the lines)
 * //Interpreting// the message's meaning and implications (reading between the lines)
 * //Applying// the message in meaningful ways (reading beyond the lines).


 * 2. Why can't reading be taught in a separate pull-out class?** Reading should be taught in a separate pull-out class by a reading specialist for those few students at the secondary level who have not acquired the basic decoding skills. ALL students (including those needing separate remediation) need specific coaching in the particular grade-appropriate reading-thinking strategies for each subject.


 * 3. How can content teachers be expected to find time to teach reading and thinking?** The fact that teachers are being held responsible for the learning of //all// students is the strongest argument for all teachers to be prepared to coach students in the particular reading strategies relevant to their subject areas. These strategies should not be done //in addition// to teaching content but //while// teaching content.


 * 4. Why should all subject areas be included in the schoolwide reading program?** Schools are more effective when all teachers accept responsibility for the overall goals of their school. Also, effective schools are organized not to teach just a given body of knowledge but to develop interests and abilities that will allow students to be reasonably well versed in their subjects in the future.

Difficulty levels of reading:

 * Reading comprehension** requires the active engagement of a text. The reader must be actively attentive, engaged, purposeful, and self-aware. For each of us there are things that are easy and hard to read. It is important to define the difficulty levels of reading.
 * Difficulty levels of reading: independent, instructional, frustration**
 * //Independent Level// - Reading is effortless. Something is already known about the topic and the language style and vocabulary used is familiar. We are able to read and comprehend without assistance. We just need to fit the new information into existing categories. The Independent level typically is defined as the highest level at which we can accurately decode 99% of the words and comprehend with 90% accuracy. This type of reading is enjoyable, relaxing, and entertaining.
 * //Instructional// Level - To comprehend this type of material, we often need to creat new categories or stop to decipher the meanings of unfamiliar words and/or language patterns. We would probably be able to read and comprehend this type of material with the type of assistance a teacher might provide in a classroom setting or by using a study-reading strategy we have internalized. Instructional-level reading is defined as the highest level at which we can accurately decode 95% of the words and comprehend with 75% accuracy. This cannot be done by reading straight through passively but instead requires an active stance. This is something called //reading-to-learn//, //study-reading,// or //Instructional-Level Reading.// The Grade-Level designation of a textbook is often assumed to be written at a students' independent study level. However, most textbooks are written at students Instructional Reading Level. This means that students need a reasonable degree of guidance from the content area teacher when interacting with the text.
 * //Frustration// Level - Decoding falls to 90% accuracy or lower and comprehension falls below 50% accuracy. Material at this level for a given reader is so difficult that it is next to impossible to understand without an extraordinary level of effort and assistance.

Implementation - the Study-Reading Process
The Study-Reading Process is thought of as a **3-stage process** of initiating the reading act, applying stratgies to read actively, and checking and building comprehension after reading.

This first step can be thought of as //schema activation// and begins with the reader quickly scanning some or all of the material, activating prior knowledge, and making some initial predictions about the content and difficulty level. Recall that schema is an individual's personal organization of information and experiences about a topic. Learning is catching new bits of information and experience and attaching those to appropriate parts in our schema. The more information a reader has related to a topic, the better they will be able to learn. This Prereading work is called schema activation: consciously calling to mind one's knowledge and experience about a topic.
 * 1. Prereading: Schema Activation**

Once schema has been activated then readers have comparison points for checking that what they are reading is making sense. Keeping track of when one is understanding and when comprehension is simply is referred to as //metacognitive monitoring//. This continuous attention to meaning can be prompted with strategies for
 * 2. During Reading: Applying strategies to read actively**
 * translating ideas into one's own words.
 * comparing ideas to personal experience.
 * trying to identify main ideas - stop and question when this is unclear.
 * noting important details.
 * rereading whenever necessary for clarification.
 * pausing to reflect whenever necessary to make relevant connections to prior knowledge and experience.
 * consolidating ideas into meaningful groups.
 * noticing unfamiliar vocabulary and predicting meanings based on context when possible.
 * forming mental pictures.
 * evaluating the author's purpose, motive, or authority when appropriate.
 * inventing study strategies as needed.
 * managing time to sustain concentration.

In the third stage, readers check basic comprehension and interpretations and decide on relevant applications of the new information and ideas. The reader compares the new information to existing schema categories and either adds it or constructs a new category to incorporate it. Strategies to prompt Postreading schema building include:
 * 3. Postreading: Building comprehension after reading**
 * Checking basic comprehension by reciting.
 * Organizing information into chunks of manageable size.
 * Deciding what is important.
 * Trying to clarify ambiguous ideas.
 * Evaluating new information in terms of previous knowledge and experience.
 * Developing study strategies according to class demands or persoal purposes.
 * Reviewing material periodically.
 * Relating what has been learned from reading back to real-life experiences and related learning.

== **Most students think that "reading is reading" and become discouraged when they encounter difficulty in reading increasingly difficult textbooks. The idea that study reading is a completely different process than easy reading, but a process that can be taught and learned, is important for both teachers and students.** ==