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Understanding Language: EL Support in Content Areas

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Understanding Language: EL Support in Content Areas

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This site from Stanford University includes a unit plan on 'persuasion across time and space' where students investigate famous persuasive speeches and analyze complex texts.

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States, districts, and schools have asked for help with gathering information on student progress, given the shift to distance learning. In response, Understanding Language created two one-hour virtual sessions focused on strengthening Formative Assessment practices in remote and non-remote environments.

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Classroom Strategies that support Content Area instruction

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Classroom Strategies that support Content Area instruction

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Explicit strategy instruction is at the core of good comprehension instruction. "Before" strategies activate students' prior knowledge and set a purpose for reading. "During" strategies help students make connections, monitor their understanding, generate questions, and stay focused. "After" strategies provide students an opportunity to summarize, question, reflect, discuss, and respond to text.

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Browse our library of "before, during, and after reading" strategies for vocabulary, comprehension, and writing instruction.

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Differentiated Instruction in the Content Areas: Strategies for Reading, Thinking, and Writing to Learn

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Differentiated Instruction in the Content Areas: Strategies for Reading, Thinking, and Writing to Learn

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This article is an excerpt from Part II of Laura Robb’s book, Teaching Reading: A Differentiated Approach.

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This organization gives a plethora of strategies to help students reflect on content and meet the literacy standards in a way that promotes cultural awareness and understanding.

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.

We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students. We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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This is an online timeline creator that allows student to easily create timelines of historical events.

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Tiki-Toki Timeline Maker: Beautiful web-based timeline software

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Create beautiful interactive timelines that you can share on the web. The perfect timeline maker for company history timelines and school projects.

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This is a resource that allows students to see different pieces of art and culture from around the world. It also has lots of articles related to history and Social Studies concepts.

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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This is a video from the YouTube channel of Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. It shows how a Grade 6 teacher uses the close reading strategy in social studies.

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National Council for the Social Studies: Teaching Argument Writing

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National Council for the Social Studies: Teaching Argument Writing

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This site offers a step-by-step way to engage students in question and analysis through an inquiry-based argumentative writing unit. The site includes a webinar and slides to guide teacher instruction.

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In this investigation, we'll explore what you can do to support students' argument writing and learn to integrate key aspects of argument into their writing as this student has done. You'll see that working on argument writing with students relies on an inquiry approach to teaching social studies as well as an emphasis on literacy. As a result, working on argument writing in social studies classrooms also integrates the expectations of the C3 Framework-specifically the emphasis on an inquiry approach to learning social studies and communicating conclusions as outlined in Dimension 4.

As a result of participating in this Investigation, you will become familiar with

The CCSS argument writing standards and what argument writing involves in the context of social studies.

The ways in which the C3 Framework supports argument writing.

Key teaching practices that support students' growth in writing social studies arguments.

1. Set up students to "Do" history

2. Help students analyze, sort and organize evidence

3. Teach writing explicitly

Access the Web seminar PowerPoint here.

Use the three sets of "Common Activity Two" reflection questions in Handout #1 to guide your team's shared conversation and reflections.

Use the "Common Activity Three" reflection questions in Handout #1 to guide your team's shared conversation and reflections.

Create: A RUBRIC OR A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF WHAT STUDENTS SHOULD INCLUDE IN THEIR ARGUMENT WRITING

Use the "Create Activity: Talk to Your Colleagues" reflection questions in Handout #1 to guide your team's shared conversation and reflections.

(3) Explain and Create: Rubrics and graphic representations of text structure are tools that serve several purposes: they can convey your expectations for writing to students, they can help you assess student work, and they can provide feedback for students.

Use Handout #2 to create a graphic representation of a text structure OR Handout #3 to create a rubric that you can use with your students to convey your expectations for argument writing.

Try it out: Use what you create with students, reflect on the experience as a team, and revise it after testing it.

Create a blog post to share the item you created. In the blog post describe the process you used for development of this tool and the context it's intended for (topic, grade-level, etc). Upload the tool as an attachment. Tag the post with the topic tag "C3 Argument Writing Tool."

In this Investigation you had the opportunity to learn about

Fellow teachers

School administrators

Parents and families

Community members

Three lessons learned or key ideas that resonated with your group

Two things you will try

One question that your have

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Meeting the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts: Argument Writing

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In this investigation, we'll explore what you can do to support students' argument writing and learn to integrate key aspects of argument into their writing as this student has done. You'll see that working on argument writing with students relies on an inquiry approach to teaching social studies as well as an emphasis on literacy.

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Digital Chalkboard: Literacy in Upper Elementary History/Social Studies

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Digital Chalkboard: Literacy in Upper Elementary History/Social Studies

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This site is sponsored by the California Department of Education. It is a resource hub for professional development aimed at integrating literacy with social studies. The upper elementary site contains information on how to integrate specific strategies like rereading and paraphrasing and vocabulary development. Videos show examples of these strategies in the classroom!

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Unit 3: Literacy in Upper Elementary History/Social Studies :: Content Literacy in History/Social Studies K-5 :: Digital Chalkboard

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The goal of Unit 3 is to demonstrate how students can apply the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language skills to understand a historical primary source. The activities demonstrate techniques for helping students closely read and reread the primary source to answer text-dependent questions, develop comprehension, and demonstrate understanding through dialogue, writing, and presentations.

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Digital Chalkboard: Literacy in Early Elementary History/Social Studies

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Digital Chalkboard: Literacy in Early Elementary History/Social Studies

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This site is sponsored by the California Department of Education. It is a resource hub for professional development aimed at integrating literacy with social studies. It shows videos of how to implement specific strategies for younger grades such as collaborative learning.

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Unit 2: Literacy in Early Elementary History/Social Studies :: Content Literacy in History/Social Studies K-5 :: Digital Chalkboard

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The goal of this unit is to demonstrate how early elementary students can apply the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language skills to understand a history/social studies textbook selection. The activities demonstrate techniques for helping students closely read and reread the text to answer text-dependent questions, develop comprehension, and demonstrate understanding through dialogue, writing, and presentations.

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Content Area Literacy: Collaborative Learning (K-5)

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Content Area Literacy: Collaborative Learning (K-5)

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A link from Reading Rockets to a site that explains how to JigSaw texts in social studies/science to boost literacy development.

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Content Area Literacy | Reading Topics A-Z | Reading Rockets

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It's the largest-scale and longest-standing teacher development program in U.S. history. Workshops are offered nationwide (usually through a local university) where teachers of all content areas learn new and exciting strategies to encourage, support, and grow the young writers in their classrooms.

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NWP leaders study and share effective practices that enhance youth writing and learning, work collaboratively with other educators, design resources, and…

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Strategies to support struggling readers in the Content Areas

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Strategies to support struggling readers in the Content Areas

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I try to make it make sense, but sometimes I just quit.
Reading textbooks is hard because the words are big and I don't understand them, and it gets boring sometimes.
I can't read at home, and we don't have enough time in my classes to read silently.
I'm good at reading what I want to read. If I don't like it, it's very hard.
When I get to a word I don't know I try to sound it out, but sometimes I just skip the word.
When the text is hard, sometimes I give up.

These are the voices of 14- and 15-year-olds, both boys and girls, who struggle to read the texts they encounter in their content area courses at school. They describe reading and writing in academic classes as "hard" and "boring," and they "give up" because they have few strategies to help them figure out new words or comprehend texts. And yet, academic learning in content areas requires adolescents to become proficient readers-they must be able to comprehend the texts they read, determine the meanings of unfamiliar words, make connections between ideas, draw conclusions based on the text and read closely to make informed inferences. They must do all these things even when the subject is unfamiliar and the text is difficult. Unfortunately, too many adolescents are unable to read with the proficiency necessary for success in content area learning, particularly in these days of increasingly rigorous standards. In the most recent implementation of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP, see nationsreportcard.gov) one in five adolescents were not even able to read at a basic level. These students could not read with comprehension or make simple inferences. To earn a score of proficient or above on the NAEP reading assessment, students must be able to read not just to recall information but also to interpret and evaluate text. Only 36% of eighth graders scored proficient on the 2013 iteration of the NAEP reading assessment.

As might be expected based on these low levels of literacy, adolescents' content area achievement is also distressingly low, as these statistics from the most recent administrations of NAEP assessments demonstrate:

36% of twelfth graders in 2010 and 26% of eighth graders in 2014 scored below-basic on knowledge of civics. These students did not demonstrate even a basic understanding of American constitutional government, their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy, or international issues that affect the United States. Only 24% of twelfth graders and 22% of eighth graders demonstrated proficient or advanced knowledge of civics.

35% of eighth graders in 2011 and 40% of twelfth graders in 2009 showed below-basic knowledge of science. Three out of ten adolescents were unable to meet new science standards requiring them to identify and use science principles, engage in scientific inquiry, and use technology to propose or critique solutions to real world problems, and they did not have even basic knowledge of Earth, physical, and life sciences. Only 32%of U.S. eighth graders in 2011 and 21% of twelfth graders in 2009 demonstrated proficient or advanced science achievement.

26% of eighth graders demonstrated below-basic mathematics knowledge in 2013. While this number is improving from previous tests, still nearly two thirds of eighth graders did not achieve proficient. Six out of 10 eighth graders were unable to select and use data to solve problems, communicate in mathematics, make inferences from data and graphs, or use abstract thinking to solve problems.

35% of twelfth graders demonstrated below-basic mathematics knowledge in 2013. These adolescents were not able to solve mathematical problems that require the direct application of concepts and procedures in familiar mathematical and real-world settings. Only 26% were able to perform at the proficient or advanced level. (NAEP, 2013)

Only one-fourth of eighth graders and one-fourth of twelfth graders achieved at or above proficiency in writing in 2011. The 2011 writing assessment required students to use a computer to complete two tasks requiring them to persuade, explain, or convey an experience. One in five students in eighth and twelfth grade performed at the below-basic level, and were unable to effectively organize ideas, respond to the prompt, use relevant supporting details or write with appropriate grammar and mechanics.

The impact of low reading ability on content area learning is compounded by other factors that make middle and high school challenging for struggling students. High school classrooms often make use of lecture-based instruction and require students to engage in independent, outside-of-class reading. In middle and high schools, adolescents typically have a different teacher for each subject area for shorter periods of time, so students must be responsible for their own learning. Students who lack independent strategies for learning content and organizing information may struggle with this lack of support.

These challenges are compounded by the fact that many adolescents are disengaged from both school and reading (Conradi & Jang, 2013; Kirsch, DeJong, LaFontaine, McQueen, Mendelovits, & Monseur, 2002). Struggling readers may also be frustrated by the mismatch between their online lives at home-where they increasingly use technology for communication, entertainment, and learning-and the paper-and-pencil learning experiences they encounter at school (Ito, Horst, Bittanti, Boyd, Herr-Stephenson, Lange, Pascoe, & Robinson, 2008).

Content area learning is essential. Even students with below-proficient levels of literacy must be afforded opportunities to learn the same content-the same math, science, English, and social studies-as their peers who read more proficiently. The content cannot be watered down if students are to pass required graduation exams and become prepared for post-secondary learning and the workplace. Knowledge of facts, concepts and strategies for learning and understanding across content areas are important for active participation as citizens in our complex society.

Content area learning has become an increasing focus as states have adopted rigorous new learning standards that focus on understanding and solving problems and preparing for a lifetime of learning. Across the US, students are increasingly expected to engage in reading and writing of multiple genres for multiple purposes across the content areas, including a grater emphasis on reading and writing informational texts and in science, social studies and mathematics. Standards in many states require that instruction and assessment be based on grade level texts that make use of academic vocabulary to convey complex ideas. These standards require students to read to draw conclusions and evaluate ideas and to write to synthesize learning and make evidence-based arguments across the content areas. These standards are intended to help all students develop the thought processes and literacy proficiency they need to become engaged citizens and to continue in postsecondary education and the workplace with success. These greater literacy demands can present challenges for students who struggle with reading and writing. Schools are increasingly searching for ways to adapt instruction so that adolescents who struggle with reading and writing have access to the content of grade-level text and the important content area learning they need.

There is no cookie-cutter answer to the dilemma of content area students with low literacy achievement. Not all students struggle with reading and writing for the same reasons (Buly & Valencia, 2002; Valencia & Buly, 2004). Some have difficulty because they have limited vocabulary knowledge. Others struggle with comprehension processes such as making inferences and synthesizing across multiple sources. Motivation and difficulty decoding can also contribute to limited literacy proficiency.

Because students bring individual challenges to the classroom, it is important to differentiate instruction. Differentiating instruction means changing the pace, format, or content of instruction on the basis of a student's strengths, weaknesses, needs, and interests (Heacox, 2001). By differentiating instruction, schools provide carefully designed instruction tailored to students' particular needs. Differentiation also means that the supports are provided to assist students who struggle with reading and writing do not hinder more accomplished students who may not need them. One model for differentiating instruction is Response to Intervention (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006). With the Response to Intervention model (RTI), schools first carefully monitor students' academic progress in regular classroom instruction. Specific, individualized interventions of increasing duration and explicitness are developed for those students who do not make adequate progress. These interventions should be based on careful assessment of students' particular learning needs and lead to differentiation of instruction.

Online learning, in particular, can provide support for struggling readers and allow schools to provide instruction in flexible, differentiated ways. Online learning contexts can also provide resources for RTI interventions. In a review of research, Hiebert, Menon, Martin, and Bach (2009) showed that online contexts support adolescents' learning, including the learning of students who struggle with literacy, because they can be designed to be more engaging, accessible, and connected than many traditional learning contexts.

In particular, online contexts can provide scaffolds for learners that allow for differentiation of instruction based on students' learning needs. Scaffolds are supports that are provided to help students learn content, and scaffolds help students to acquire cognitive strategies that support future learning (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). As students work toward mastery, the level of scaffolding can be gradually reduced. Online contexts can provide two types of scaffolding: adaptive and strategic (Hiebert, Menon, Martin, & Bach, 2009).

Adaptive scaffolds are changes to content or texts that make them more accessible, such as, for example, when texts are designed to be more readable through the number of ideas presented on each page. Adaptive scaffolds can also take the form of features of the learning environment that students are able to manipulate as needed in order to access learning, such as text-to-speech support that allows students to hear texts they would otherwise be unable to read or graphic organizers to guide their reading.

Strategic scaffolds support students in acquiring and using strategies to support their own learning, both in the immediate context and in learning situations far beyond. Proficient learners integrate and apply a variety of reading and learning strategies, such as asking themselves questions, summarizing as they read, and rereading to clarify meaning. Strategic scaffolding teaches students how and when to use these mental strategies and supports learners' use of strategies as they engage with the materials.

While both adaptive and strategic scaffolds may be provided in traditional learning contexts, online contexts allow scaffolds to be designed for and built into the learning context and for scaffolds to be flexibly utilized in order to differentiate instruction (Hiebert, Menon, Martin, & Bach, 2009). This white paper describes adaptive and strategic scaffolds that research has shown to support the academic content area learning of adolescents who struggle with reading.

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Supporting Struggling Readers in Content Area Learning

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I try to make it make sense, but sometimes I just quit. Reading textbooks is hard because the words are big and I don't understand them, and it gets boring sometimes. I can't read at home, and we don't have enough time in my classes to read silently.

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Teachers will discover innovations and best practices for combining multiple academic subjects to prepare students for a world where all knowledge is integrated.

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

Discover innovations and best practices for combining multiple academic subjects to prepare students for a world where all knowledge is integrated.

Sort by:

New research reveals that when science, reading, and math come together in rigorous hands-on projects, student collaboration, engagement, and achievement can soar.

Combining science and literature can help students engage more deeply with both subjects.

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George Lucas Educational Foundation Discover innovations and best practices for combining multiple academic subjects to prepare students for a world where all knowledge is integrated. Sort by: New research reveals that when science, reading, and math come together in rigorous hands-on projects, student collaboration, engagement, and achievement can soar.

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A subscription-based ebook resources for teachers and schools.

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What a treasure. This site is extremely useful for non readers of all ages. My children just love it. I have shared this site with many of our special needs teachers across our county. Thanks so much for providing such a fun, affordable, and worthwhile product.
Renee
Special Education Teacher, MI
We love TumbleBooks!!! I should add the kids do, too!! TumbleBooks has allowed us to introduce a vast collection of books to students and they W A N T to read. It gives them choice, gives them some control over their own learning, all while at an appropriate reading level. What could be better?
Kathy
Reading Consultant Seth Haley School, CT
I love this site! The fact that the levels of books available are so far-reaching makes this a wonderful site for classrooms---virtually any child can utilize the features on this site. The book report feature is great as well--right along with many of the standards we are teaching in our classrooms, and a great tool for guiding students. The quizzes offer students feedback, and also encouragement as they continue to read. This promotes a feeling of success among students, and furthers their love for literature and reading.
Tammy
Curriculum Coach, SC
This is the best interactive read aloud website I have found. My students and I love it. We can always locate a book easy that connects to what we have been studying. The students love to watch the pictures, and as they progress with their decoding skills they pick out words that they know. When we watch one of these books, I have to pause it after every page so they can find all their sight words that are on the page. The website makes it like have a celebrity reader in our room daily. Thank you so much for your wonderful reading website.
Brandi
Kindergarten, AL

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TumbleBookLibrary is a curated database of children's e-books, available by subscription to Elementary Schools and Public Libraries around the world. TumbleBookLibrary Premium has over 1100 titles for grades K-6, and includes our unique animated, talking picture books, read-along chapter books, non fiction books and videos, curated playlists, as well as books in Spanish and French.

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Khan Academy offers videos, lessons, and resources in the areas or Arts and Humanities that includes lessons on history, government, civics, and politics.

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If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

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Beauty. War. Religion. Society. Language. The human condition, in all its wonder and depravity, is at the heart of the study of the arts and humanities.

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Resources, Professional Development, and Videos to support literacy development in Social Studies

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Results on ReadWriteThink - ReadWriteThink

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Classroom Resources | Grades 4 - 7 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson A "Cay"ribbean Island Study As a pre-reading activity for The Cay, groups of students choose and study a Caribbean island, create a final product in the format of their choice, and finally, do an oral presentation to share information learned.

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Teaching resources, building background knowledge and personal experiences using Google Expedition opportunities for virtual reality fieldtrips

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Tes provides a range of primary and secondary school teaching resources including lesson plans, worksheets and student activities for all curriculum subjects.

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Support for understanding 'new literacies; of online reading comprehension with lesson plans that include differentiated strategies like, 'let me try' and 'show me' (K-8).

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Introduction

A new literacies perspective of online reading comprehension frames online reading comprehension as a process of problem-based inquiry involving the new skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices that take place as we use the Internet.

One difference from earlier models of traditional print comprehension is that online reading comprehension involves a self-directed process of constructing texts while engaged in at least five practices: 1) reading to identify important questions, 2) reading to locate information, 3) reading to evaluate information critically, 4) reading to synthesize information, and 5) reading to communicate information.

Within these five inquiry-based practices reside the skills, strategies, and dispositions distinctive to online reading as well as others that are also important for offline reading comprehension.

Areas to Explore

1. Introduction: This location provides an overview of the new literacies of online reading comprehension and links to a growing list of skills, strategies, and dispositions that have emerged from our research as necessary for successful online reading performance.Additional readings and background material useful for faculty study groups is provided here as well.

2. Show Me: Here you can view video segments of students engaged in four components of online reading comprehension, including reading to locate, reading to evaluate, reading to synthesize, and reading to communicate. For each component, you can view video examples of skilled and less-skilled readers alongside notes about important skills that are present or absent during each student's completion of the task.

3. Let Me Try: Here you can practice scoring selected video segments of students at each phase of the online reading process. A scoring rubric is provided for each item as well as space to record your observations about each student. You are also encouraged to discuss observations with colleagues to ensure you are noticing similar things and to make connections to skills you might be noticing among your own students.

4. In My Class: This location offers a series of lessons linked to each of the components of online reading comprehension. After you have considered your own students' strengths and areas of need, you can access or adapt lessons focused on specific skills to integrate instruction in online reading comprehension into your classroom curricula.

Learning Goals

After exploring this set of online resources, you will better understand how to:

Identify the online reading skills and strategies necessary to comprehend text and conduct research on the Internet

Connect the set of online reading skills with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Reading in Science

Give examples of how skilled and less skilled seventh graders perform in four key areas of online reading comprehension and research

Score student performance on items that measure their ability to locate, evaluate, synthesize and communicate information on the Internet for a specific research task

Teach your students the reading skills for how to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate online information for their own Internet research project

Additional Readings
New Literacies Theory and Research in Online Reading Comprehension

Leu, D. J., Jr., Kinzer, C.K., Coiro, J., Castek, J. (in press). New literacies: A dual-level theory of the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment. To appear in R.B. Ruddell & D. Alvermann (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, Sixth Edition, Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Leu, D. J., Jr., Coiro, J., Castek, J., Hartman, D. K., Henry, L. A., & Reinking, D. (2008). Research on instruction and assessment of the new literacies of online reading comprehension. In C. C. Block, S. Parris, and P. Afflerbach, (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 321-346). New York: Guilford Press.

Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (2008). Central issues in new literacies and new literacies research. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, and D. J. Leu. The handbook of research in new literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Leu, D. J., Zawlinski, L., Castek, J., Banerjee, M., Housand, B., Liu, Y., & O'Neil, M. (2007). What is new about the new literacies of online reading comprehension? In A. Berger, L. Rush, & J. Eakle (Eds.) Secondary school reading and writing: What research reveals for classroom practices. NCTE/NCRLL: Chicago, IL.

Coiro, J. & Dobler, E. (2007). Exploring the online comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the Internet. Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 214-257.

Leu, D. J., Jr., Kinzer, C.K., Coiro, J., Cammack, D. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the Internet and other ICT. In R.B. Ruddell & N. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, Fifth Edition (1568-1611). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Coiro, J. (2003). Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Expanding our understanding of reading comprehension to encompass new literacies. The Reading Teacher, 56(5), 458-464.

Teaching and Assessing Online Reading Comprehension

Coiro, J. (2012). Digital Literacies: Understanding dispositions toward reading on the Internet. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(7), 645-648.

Coiro, J. (2011). Talking about reading: Modeling the hidden complexities of online reading comprehension. Theory Into Practice, 50(2), 107-115. Companion website at https://sites.google.com/site/tiponlinethinkaloudlessons/

Coiro, J. (2009). Rethinking assessment in a digital age. Educational Leadership, 66, 59-63.

Coiro, J. (2005). Making sense of online text. Educational Leadership, 63(2), 30-35.

Coiro, J. (2003). Rethinking comprehension strategies to better prepare students for critically evaluating content on the Internet. The NERA Journal, 39, 29-34.

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A new literacies perspective of online reading comprehension frames online reading comprehension as a process of problem-based inquiry involving the new skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices that take place as we use the Internet.

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Resources for teachers that include videos, lesson plans and interactive materials.

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Browse standards-aligned resources for your students.

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News for Students and Teacher Resources. Teachers can also find articles to guide discussions.

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Do young people think about the choices they make as teenagers and how they may have consequences for their adult lives?

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Smithsonian: Artifact and Analysis (6-8)

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Smithsonian: Artifact and Analysis (6-8)

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This site incorporates
artifacts to teach events of U.S. history.

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Resources for CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.10

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Resources for CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7

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Specific Strategies for Developing Literacy in Social Studies 

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Specific Strategies for Developing Literacy in Social Studies 

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Resources for CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1-2, RH.6-8.6,RH.6-8.9

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This is the website from the National Endowment of the Humanities. It includes lesson plans for K-12 that highlight the use of primary sources.

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An online resource from the National Archives that provides access to thousands of primary sources (including a lot of photographs). The site also includes activities and other online tools.

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News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for kids. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for children, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom. It also incudes articles for social studies and also other content areas. You can use it in Spanish and French as well.

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Our product

News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for kids. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for children, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom.

Children react to the news!

Our readers are sharing their thoughts about the news. They are really engaging with the news !

"News-O-Matic is the first thing I do in the morning after I wake up!" Elizabeth, 10

" Eve ry day my dad reads the newspaper and I go on my iPad and read my News-O-Matic paper. I love this app and I love learning every day what's going on on the earth so I read this app and find out. Thanks!" Dylan, 8

"I love NOM very much. It is a useful reading resource for me. It helps me when I'm sad. I just read 1 of the articles and I'm happy. Thank you for making News-O-M a tic!" Ian, 9

News-O-Matic is widely used in schools!

At school

More than 1,000 schools use News-O-Matic for nonfiction reading, social studies, geography, science, and more!

Start your free pilot!

Children love News-O-Matic... and their parents love it too!

News-O-Matic helps its partners to create tomorrow's readers

With News-O-Matic, children develop a better understanding of the world!

About us

Meet our team of dedicated professionals !

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News-O-Matic - News-O-Matic is the daily newspaper for kids on iOS and Android, an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience, and a fantastic modern educational tool.

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News-O-Matic is the first daily newspaper just for kids. It provides an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience for children, complete with valuable literacy tools for the classroom. Children react to the news! Our readers are sharing their thoughts about the news. They are really engaging with the news !

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It is an easy-to-use educational tool and a great way to increase engagement and add extension activities fnot only for social studies but science lessons. Interactive games and video clips are arranged by topic. Videos are brief (one to five minutes) and include excerpts from National Geographic's nature films and exploration shows.

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It has animated movies together with quizzes and related materials not only for Social Studies but for other content areas.

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The Vlog Brothers (Hank and John green have created a series of animated videos that do a great job of helping students understand different topics related to government and history.

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history biology literature learning education science humanities school "world history" ap tests smart fun chemistry psychology apush whap

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At Crash Course, we believe that high quality educational videos should be available to everyone for free! Subscribe for weekly videos from our current courses! Right now, we're producing Organic Chemistry and European History. We also recently teamed up with Arizona State University to bring you two more courses: Study Hall Composition, and Study Hall Algebra.

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This website has a variety of games that allow students to participate in government virtually. Using this game allows students to practice being active participants in the governmental process. The site also includes access to free lessons to download.

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In this new Private i History Detectives unit, Elementary students analyze primary sources to discover how Constitutional Amendments attempted to address slavery's wrongs, how the courts challenged unfair laws, and how individuals and groups fought for civil rights.

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In this new Private i History Detectives unit, Elementary students analyze primary sources to discover how Constitutional Amendments attempted to address slavery's wrongs, how the courts challenged unfair laws, and how individuals and groups fought for civil rights.

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This amazing site for K-12 educators features lesson plans using primary resources that meet the Common Core Standards as well as state standards. It also offers teachers tips on how to use primary sources in the classroom.

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The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching.

Getting Started with Primary Sources

Explore short videos on using resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources in the classroom.

Teaching with the Library of Congress Blog

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About This Program | Teachers | Programs | Library of Congress

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The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Getting Started with Primary Sources Explore short videos on using resources and teaching strategies for using primary sources in the classroom.

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This free resource allows teachers to access lessons for free that encourage students to evaluate sources and multiple perspectives regarding historial events.

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History Lessons | Stanford History Education Group

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This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence.

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Smithsonian Institute Guide to Using Primary Sources (Best for K-8)

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Smithsonian Institute Guide to Using Primary Sources (Best for K-8)

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This is a resource that all teachers can use to better understand the different types of primary resources: documents, photographs, oral histories, and objects.

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Historical Scene Investigation Project (Best for 4-8)

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Historical Scene Investigation Project (Best for 4-8)

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This is a project from the College of William and Mary that uses primary sources to explore major historical events.

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Epic! is a free online ebook resource for teachers. Educators can set up their classrooms for students to read books, listen to audio books, and watch videos to build background knowledge and add to the learning.

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Readworks provides nonfiction texts and current event articles with leveled options for students to provide different voices and perspectives.

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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This site provides examples on how to use the images and content of the New York Times to support reading strategies outlined by the CCSS and for Informational Text. Strategies for before reading, during reading, and after reading are also included.

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The Times and the Common Core Standards: Reading Strategies for ‘Informational Text’

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Why the Common Core Standards and The New York Times are perfect together, and a list of all our favorite literacy strategies for before, during and after reading a Times article with students. Bookmark this one!

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Become familiar with the countries of the world. Can access on Puffin Web Browser from iPads and Android devices.

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World Geography Games Online - Let's play and learn Geography!

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Brain-engaging geography map games: learn countries of the world, capitals, flags, US States, continents, oceans, mountains, rivers, islands and much more.

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MN Historical Society Library (Grades 3-8)

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MN Historical Society Library (Grades 3-8)

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Access primary resources, MN people, access collections online by year, type, name, place, and subject.

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Applications are being accepted for the 2019 Legacy Research Fellowship program through Oct. 8! Fellowships are for independent researchers engaged in Minnesota-related research drawing on the Gale Family Library resources and adding to the body of knowledge and interpretation of Minnesota's history.

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MN Center for Social Studies Instruction (K-8)

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MN Center for Social Studies Instruction (K-8)

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Links to Social Studies resources, like Dakota and Ojibwe Resources, videos, and information on the inquiry process.

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Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education (CSSE)

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The Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education (CSSE) is a collaboration of partnering organizations whose mission is to promote excellence in social studies education.

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Newsela provides nonfiction texts, text sets, and current event articles with leveled options, for students.

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Using Multimedia to Support Reading of Complex SS Texts (K-8)

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Using Multimedia to Support Reading of Complex SS Texts (K-8)

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Think like an historian by evaluating and synthesizing complex texts! This link to Reading Rockets's site includes a video tutorial on a guided inquiry process of using technology tools to support reading in social studies.

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Overview

Complex content-area texts are likely to present unique challenges for your struggling students and those with disabilities.

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) represent a shift in the way we approach reading instruction, particularly with regard to content-area reading in history, social studies, and science. Students are expected to read primary and secondary sources closely, analyze text, determine central ideas, and distinguish among fact, fiction, and reasoned judgments in text. With these shifts, all of your students, both with and without disabilities, could benefit from explicit instruction in strategies for reading and making meaning of nonfiction texts. As students move through middle and high school, they must acquire a different set of skills and strategies to understand dense primary source documents.

Explicit instruction that activates background knowledge, scaffolds summary skills, and facilitates the development of academic vocabulary can provide students with the supports they need to access the standards. Technology tools that provide reading supports (e.g., text-to-speech, built-in resources) and multimedia that encourage inquiry-based history learning are a great way to build your students' content-specific vocabulary and comprehension.

Using in your classroom

Social studies instruction that is solely text-based tends to emphasize learning about history, while rich, inquiry-based instruction emphasizes learning how to think like a historian.

To think like a historian, your students need to be able to evaluate, corroborate, and synthesize multiple, often-conflicting, sources. These sources may include newspaper articles, paintings, political cartoons, songs, diary entries, depositions, and speeches. Each of these sources requires vocabulary and comprehension strategies that may be vastly different from those used in your students' other classes.

Although exposure to multiple media and sources is a critical component of providing your students with rich, inquiry-based history instruction, you can make your lessons even more powerful through the use of digital multimedia.

Research into effective practices for inquiry-based history instruction has supported the use of:

Engaging questions to facilitate active learning

Multiple sources to increase learning

Scaffolding to develop analytical skills

Technology tools and supports can be an excellent way to help students engage with social studies texts in a meaningful way, and build deeper understanding through guided inquiry.

Consider employing rich multimedia resources to help students explore engaging questions about history, rather than simply describing an event. For example, the website Picturing Modern America encourages students to analyze primary source documents and images; explore the interpretations of students, teachers, and historians; and, create digital slide shows that present their own historical arguments.

Learning from multiple sources facilitates a deeper historical understanding. Students should explore historical topics through paintings, diary entries, newspaper articles, and period music. Many of these primary sources are available online in digital format. Consider using digital materials wherever possible so that struggling readers have access to text-to-speech, online references, and dictionaries and glossaries.

A key component of thinking like a historian involves the ability to evaluate and analyze multiple, sometimes contradictory, sources. This is a challenging skill for many students and one that requires significant scaffolding and explicit instruction. Cooperative learning activities can be a great way to help students understand how historians construct narratives about the past. Consider having students work together to analyze historical documents and create a classroom wiki page, giving students the opportunity to discuss different perspectives and construct meaning.

Many websites and software programs are available that can help your students explore the past in an exciting and engaging way. Look for programs that embed tools to facilitate students' comprehension, evaluation, and corroboration of sources, such as questioning strategies, models of think-alouds, and tools that allow students to record and organize their responses. For example, the website Investigating the First Thanksgiving includes a glossary, audio interviews with experts, guidance for analyzing historical evidence, prompting questions, and an opportunity for students to create their own museum exhibits.

What the research says

Although research on using digital multimedia environments to improve student understanding in history is in the early stages, significant research exists on best practices for history instruction. These research-based strategies for building background knowledge, vocabulary, and deep content understanding can be supported and strengthened through the use of carefully selected technology tools.

Research on inquiry-based learning has pointed out how engaging this approach is for students. In a combined fourth- and fifth-grade classroom, Barton (1997) observed students engaged in analyzing conflicting sources to determine if the British or the Colonists started the Battle of Lexington. VanSledright (2002) observed fifth graders intrigued by the prospect of solving the "starving time" mystery that plagued colonial Jamestown in the early 1600s. Similar observations have been made in classrooms where students with special needs were included in the research sample. For instance, Ferretti, MacArthur, and Okolo (2001) observed students in four upper elementary classrooms research Westward Expansion from diverse perspectives. In this study, they found that the inquiry-based approach had a positive effect on students with disabilities, giving them a higher sense of self-efficacy.

In the studies mentioned above (Barton, 1997; Feretti et al., 2001; VanSledright, 2002), the researchers continually point out how presenting students with multiple sources furthered their learning of the topic. In another study, Gabella (1994) interviewed a class of high school students who studied topics using multiple sources, including works of art, and concludes that this approach resulted in more sophisticated understanding and analyses of history. These students, Gabella contends, not only recognized the aesthetic qualities of the various media, but also connected these qualities to the social and political contexts of the topics they were studying.

Scaffolds are an effective way to highlight critical features of a source and support demonstration of learning. De La Paz (2005) tested the effects of scaffolding students' analyses of conflicting sources and developing an argument by comparing two groups of eighth-grade students. The 70 students in the experimental group - 12 of whom were students with learning disabilities - received explicit instruction for these analytic and persuasive writing skills. The control group of 63 students did not receive these supports. Results indicate that the experimental group's essays received higher average scores for length, persuasiveness, strength of argument, and accuracy.

Brush and Saye (2001) observed 36 eleventh-grade students in a nonhonors track history classroom use the computer program Decision Point! Their observational data reveal that students did not always use the analytical scaffolds made available. When they did use them, the authors conclude, the students' abilities to summarize documents improved whereas their abilities to critically analyze them did not. In another study (Saye & Brush, 2002), these researchers worked with the same classroom. In this observational study, the focus was on the scaffolds designed to help students structure and present an argument. Results reveal that a storyboard scaffold with prompts for citing evidence and conflicting viewpoints were helpful for students.

Britt and Aglinskas (2002) collected the work that 60 eleventh graders and 49 undergraduate psychology majors created when using the computer program, Sourcer's Apprentice, which provides a series of questions that help students analyze the authors of sources, their bias, their intended audience, and the potential impact of these factors on their representation of a topic. After analyzing the students' use of multiple sources they deemed reliable and significant to defend an argument, the researchers concluded that the program "supports students in the use of expert sourcing heuristics [e.g., evaluating the reliability of a source by examining the background of the person who created the source], and...such scaffolding improves learning in multiple-source learning environments" ( p. 378 ).

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Complex content-area texts are likely to present unique challenges for your struggling students and those with disabilities. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) represent a shift in the way we approach reading instruction, particularly with regard to content-area reading in history, social studies, and science.