Our school has implemented reading and writing in all content areas. Kids need to be literate. If we ignore the fact that no matter when they read, they should be using strategies and reading well, and no matter when they write, they should be held to quality standards, we are doing them a disservice in my opinion. Nonfiction reading, when they need to get content, is the most difficult reading my kids do in school. Why wouldn't we want their teachers to be helping them learn to read that information well? A further argument is the research on lack of transfer between subject areas. If we work on nonfiction reading techniques in LA, it doesn't transfer to other subjects easily or often. I think it is nuts that because content people are uncomfortable with the idea, that we ignore that it needs to happen for our kids. Schools have a responsibility to do what is best for kids, it is easy to lose sight of that though, especially when there are mighty squeaky wheels (and often many of them!).
We have had a literacy specialist in to work with our staff as a whole. We now have common vocabulary, reading strategies/processes/vocabulary, and writing rubric/vocabulary/processes shared across grade levels and content areas. Some of the content teachers have now met one-on-one with a literacy specialist to discuss their particular content and processes. All of our content vocabulary is sent to our English teachers and they teach those words when they teach the roots that go with them for more experience with content vocabulary. Our content people all have a beginning of the year reading quiz created from their text book to place kids into four categories of reading abilities so they differentiate appropriately and provide the appropriate supports for low ability kids and challenges for high ability kids. Our content people are NOT teaching diagnostic reading. They are using strategies like Doug Buehl¹s lessons paired with their content readings, Janet Allen¹s strategies from Words Words Words paired with their vocabulary, and grading using a Six Traits Writing Rubric paired with the writing assignments they give. They are also teaching patterns of organization of text. While I agree that it is a daunting task for content area teachers, training has helped lessen the blow. They are more comfortable with teaching using these strategies now. It helps that their students are learning their content better and they are seeing a marked change! Our kids are learning more content AND they are becoming better readers and writers in the process. It has also improved the staff's relationships. We are teaming on more than just literacy. I guess I'm a pretty strong believer in content area reading and writing. There are some beautiful things happening in our school! :) -- Traci Moore Middle School Literacy Mentorship Coordinator Rockford Schools Rockford, MN _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
