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Shhhhhh...Listen carefully to your students... They have much to say.

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Shhhhhh...Listen carefully to your students... They have much to say.

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Click on this post to read what it's all about. Your next KWL can be a DSA! See paragraph 10.

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Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to literacy practices across content areas, there are small, but effective shifts teachers can make to get students practicing the domain-specific skills they need.

Math, history, science, and even art teachers often find themselves trying to work literacy instruction into their classrooms. After all, the ability to read, synthesize, and explain concepts and ideas in writing is essential in every subject.

But how should instructors who don't specialize in literacy go about helping students do this work at a high level within their discipline?

Too often, writes former teacher and literacy consultant ReLeah Rent, in ASCD, teachers rely on "one-size-fits-all" approaches like word walls, K-W-L charts, or concept maps. One of the problems with these generic literacy strategies is that they are often unrelated to the content areas students are studying. Focusing on metaphors, for example, will be useful for an English class, but is less relevant to a written deconstruction of a math problem or the sort of concise, factual writing needed in a science report, Lent contends.

The ultimate goal of cross-curricular literacy, she argues, should be to develop the kind of writing fluency that is useful for a given discipline.

To adapt strategies to better suit students, Lent writes that teachers must first identify the skills students need to be successful in specific content areas and focus on teaching these skills "while teaching content-not as a sidebar to the content."

For example, literacy strategies in a science class should focus on getting students to use precise vocabulary, compose in a passive voice, and favor exactness over elaboration. Meanwhile, students in history class should prioritize learning how to efficiently synthesize information from multiple sources, organize ideas, facts, and evidence, and write in an argumentative manner that prioritizes meaningful connections between disparate information over the sort of evocative, figurative writing that might be prized in an ELA classroom.

Making these adjustments, Lent writes, "brings to life a much richer schoolwide curriculum as students learn how to use literacy for different purposes in various subject areas." Here are some examples of how teachers can go about doing this work.

Getting Disciplined
Commonly used literacy strategies that ask students to pause and consider what they know about a given topic or concept can be easily modified to better suit your classroom, Lent writes.

For example, K-W-L is an effective strategy to get students thinking about their learning trajectory: what they already comprehend (what I know), what they should read in the future (what I want to know), and what they should review (what I have learned).

But small shifts can customize the strategy to different content areas and align it more crisply with the reading and writing objectives of the discipline being studied. For example, in science class K-W-L can be adapted to "observe, infer, and conclude." In math class, it makes more sense for students to "deconstruct, solve, apply," and in foreign languages to "listen, comprehend, and speak."

Asking students to "think like a historian" and then following up with a word wall or concept map has value, but real historians "must learn how to intuitively source materials, read closely for underlying bias, and engage in an analysis of the text or a comparison of one text to another," she says. To achieve the goal of "thinking like a historian," then, students have to do the work of close reading primary materials and drawing relevant inferences: In the end, "disciplinary literacy is about doing the work of the disciplines instead of merely reading about it."

Which Skills?
To make all the right shifts, Lent suggests setting aside time to identify the skills students need to learn and use to be successful in their specific content areas.

Doing that work, she says, should involve conferring with colleagues who teach the same content and coming up with a tight list of expected skills and behaviors. Teachers may even need to read a book, study up on lesson plans, or take advantage of more professional development to learn the best way to teach these identified skills. The work, Lent writes, is worth it: "focusing on literacy skills within the disciplines brings to life a much richer schoolwide curriculum as students learn how to use literacy for different purposes in various subject areas."

Lent writes that science teachers would prioritize getting students to "use precise vocabulary" in their writing and composing in "phrases, bullets, graphs, or sketches." History teachers might focus on getting students to "create timelines with accompanying narratives", "synthesize info/evidence from multiple sources," and "grapple with multiple ideas and large quantities of information" when they write. Math teachers, meanwhile, would likely focus on teaching students to effectively "explain, justify, describe, estimate, or analyze" and "favor calculations over words" in their content-specific writing.

Get Students Writing-In Content Specific Ways
Rebecca Alber, a literacy specialist and instructor at UCLA's Graduate School of Education suggests a similar strategy. In a post for Edutopia, she writes that teachers should aim to get students doing as much domain specific writing as their curriculum allows for. "Writing helps us make sense of what we are learning and helps us make connections to our own lives or others' ideas." Alber suggests mixing informal writing activities like quick writes, stop and jots, or one-minute essays into instruction, but like Lent she says that the key is to think through the particular skills inherent to the discipline, and tailor the activities to those objectives.

In history classrooms, high school teacher Benjamin Barbour suggests asking students to examine their possessions from the perspective of a historian from the future. By getting students to imagine themselves as a researcher or archaeologist and conduct a detailed, written analysis of their chosen "artifact," you can have them practicing necessary skills such as: questioning the significance of the artifact, how it might exemplify a certain culture, and drawing inferences as to what it suggests about society during this time. By asking students to peer-edit each other's work, you can have them practice skills such as assessing the strength of evidence and arguments in support of a claim, as well as evaluate how differing interpretations of an artifact can shape the way history is perceived.

In math classrooms, University of Connecticut education professor Tutita M. Casa and colleagues suggest that teachers can rework prompts to get students effectively using writing to assess the validity of solutions-an activity that positions them as "mathematical thinkers and writers."

For example, one style of prompt may ask students to determine if the work of another student, or a fictional student that you invent, is mathematically sound-and then explain using mathematical language and models why it's accurate. Another prompt might present students with two different solutions and ask them to choose one and defend their position with questions like: "How do you know?" or "Whose solution do you agree with, and why?"

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How to Work Literacy Instruction Into All Content Areas

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Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to literacy practices across content areas, there are small, but effective shifts teachers can make to get students practicing the domain-specific skills they need. Math, history, science, and even art teachers often find themselves trying to work literacy instruction into their classrooms. After all, the ability to read, synthesize, and explain concepts and ideas in writing is essential in every subject.

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Start with the Notice And Wonder concept!

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Start with the Notice And Wonder concept!

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After watching the video, try making your own Notice And Wonder four image posts and add them to the Padlet! Or link them in the comments below.

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https://www.cal.org/siop/about/history.html

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Foundational Research on the SIOP Model

The SIOP Model was developed in a national research project sponsored by the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE), a national research center funded by the U.S. Department of Education from 1996 through 2003 to assist the nation's population of diverse students, including those at risk of educational failure, to achieve academic excellence.

One of the goals of CREDE was to develop an explicit model of sheltered instruction. When the research began, sheltered instruction was widely advocated as an effective instructional strategy for language minority students, but there was little agreement among practitioners as to what constitutes an effective sheltered lesson.

Through literature review and with the collaboration of practicing teachers, researchers at California State University, Long Beach (Jana Echevarría and Mary Ellen Vogt), and the Center for Applied Linguistics (Deborah J. Short) identified instructional features of high-quality sheltered lessons. The model was refined over several years of field testing.

Early research found the SIOP Model to be effective with English Language Learners as measured by narrative and expository writing assessments. CAL is currently conducting further research in schools by facilitating professional development on the SIOP Model and examining the effects of SIOP-based instruction on student achievement in core content areas and in English language development.

Visit the CREDE project page for more information and to review selected research findings.

Spotlight
SIOP Model Workshops for Coaches and Professional Development Staff
Instructional coaches and other professional development staff further develop their knowledge of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model and learn ways to guide and support others who are developing SIOP expertise. CAL staff can support these instructional leaders as they coach other teachers or develop and implement a professional development program for their schools.
Learn more.

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The SIOP Model was developed in a national research project sponsored by the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE), a national research center funded by the U.S. Department of Education from 1996 through 2003 to assist the nation's population of diverse students, including those at risk of educational failure, to achieve academic excellence.

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See what your students write...They have different ways to show what they know...

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See what your students write...They have different ways to show what they know...

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What do you notice about this group's poster? What do you wonder?

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Side by Side: ELP Standards & Math Standards

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Side by Side: ELP Standards & Math Standards

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Side by Side: ELP Standards & Math Standards

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Side by Side: ELP Standards & Math Standards

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Connections for Success Banner.png Connections for Success (CFS) was developed after House Bill 2135 was passed in 2021. CFS focuses on high school math standards, specifically Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2. Each document highlights a standard cluster and its vertical alignment to prior and upc…

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Let them speak! Remember diversity. Hear the culturally diverse voices.

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Let them speak! Remember diversity. Hear the culturally diverse voices.

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Let them read, but give them a word wall!

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Let them read, but give them a word wall!

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Did You Know? AZed.gov has 4th Credit HS Math general guidance.

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Did You Know? AZed.gov has 4th Credit HS Math general guidance.

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But follow your district and school's guidance. Its up to the LEA what is offered. See the full general guidance on the post below.

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Arizona General Guidance for Fourth Credit Math (2)

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Horne v. Flores (2009) SCOTUS decision summary. Let them speak? 

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Horne v. Flores (2009) SCOTUS decision summary. Let them speak? 

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https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/433/

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Your students are listening...Model precise language, think aloud, teach mathematical language, be explicit.

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Your students are listening...Model precise language, think aloud, teach mathematical language, be explicit.

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Try on the bat ears at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum. We tried it and I went all the way to the entrance of the cave and said, "Still hear me?" and this human-bat hybrid could.

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Let them read, but give them culturally relevant, curriculum relevant, real world, high interest stuff to read!

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Let them read, but give them culturally relevant, curriculum relevant, real world, high interest stuff to read!

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https://www.azed.gov/sites/default/files/2019/10/ROA%20Strategic%20Plan%20FINAL.pdf?id=5d9f64ff03e2b31b5cda6d2e

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Resources for my middle school SPED colleagues:

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Resources for my middle school SPED colleagues:

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https://education.umd.edu/special-education-literacy

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Below are nearly a dozen guides to help parents and teachers improve reading among their sixth through eighth grade students with disabilities. They were created by researchers at the Language and Literacy Research Center at the College of Education in partnership with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk on a project called PACT Plus. Pact Plus implements a tiered approach to improve reading among sixth- through eighth-grade students with disabilities in public schools. One of the goals of the project is to provide evidence-based technical assistance, professional development, and publications on effective models and their successful implementation for secondary students with disabilities.

Resources for Parents

How Can I Help My Middle Schooler Read Multisyllabic Words?

How Can I Help to Improve My Child's Reading Comprehension?

How Can I Help My Child With Content Area Reading at Home?

How to Motivate Children to Do Their Homework?
How Can I Support My Adolescent's Development as a Writer? How Do I Engage in Partner Reading With My Child?
Resources for Teachers
Adolescent Literacy Resource Menu: A Guide for Instructional Leaders
This guide is organized by commonly experienced challenges (e.g., lack of modeling) to teachers implementing evidence-based adolescent literacy practices with fidelity. Also provided are an explanation of each challenge and resources from established organizations and research centers that instructional leaders can use to address these challenges. Some of these resources are brief documents that a teacher can quickly scan; others are lengthier and may require more time to read and make sense of. Many of the resources are free (e.g., online resources), and some have an associated cost (e.g., books). This guide provides an estimate of the cost and time associated with each resource
Turn and Talk: An Evidence-Based Practice - Teacher's Guide
Turn and talk is an instructional routine in which students use content knowledge during a brief conversation with a peer. Students are provided with a short prompt to discuss content or a skill. Students turn to their predetermined partner and answer the prompt while their partner listens. Then, the partners switch roles to allow the second student to address the prompt. The turn-and-talk routine can be used across all content areas and at any grade level. This guide explains the routine, and provides evidence of its effectiveness, sample lessons using the routine, and solutions to common challenges.
Partner Reading: An Evidence-Based Practice - Teacher's Guide
Partner reading is an instructional routine that incorporates peer modeling into reading text. In the routine, one partner reads a text that is slightly challenging while the other partner corrects errors and checks for understanding. It is most effective to pair students so that one partner is a slightly more skilled reader than the other. Partners take turns being the reader and listener. The more skilled reader reads first, modeling fluent reading for the listener. While following along, the listener is exposed to any difficult words and essentially rehearses the text before reading it aloud. The partners switch roles, and the new reader reads aloud the same text while the new listener provides feedback and checks for understanding. This flexible routine can be used with any content area text in any grade level.

For more information and resources from PACTPlus go to https://www.meadowscenter.org/projects/detail/pact-plus

The Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC) at the College of Education is an interdisciplinary center within the College of Education that brings together faculty and students from different perspectives. The mission of the Language and Literacy Research Center is to create long-term, productive partnerships amongst researchers, students, and educators in order to further develop our understanding and support of language and literacy development and instruction across the lifespan. The LLRC acts as the educational arm of the Language Science Center.

Visit their Facebook page for more information and up to date posts!

Featured Faculty

Dr. Jade Wexler is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Wexler is interested in investigating practices to improve reading instruction across the content areas and in the supplemental intervention setting for adolescents with and at risk for reading disabilities and behavior disorders. She is also interested in designing professional development and literacy coaching mechanisms to improve fidelity of implementation.

Dr. Wexler is currently the principal investigator (PI) of an IES funded research project, Project CALI (Content Area Literacy Instruction). Dr. Wexler has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as two books on adolescent literacy and related topics. She has also delivered many presentations and professional development workshops across the country and abroad and often consults with federally funded centers such as the National Center on Intensive Intervention.

Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, she was a Research Assistant Professor and Dropout Institute co-Director at The University of Texas at Austin Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk. Dr. Wexler has directed large-scale intervention studies funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, The Meadows Foundation, and The Greater Texas Foundation. She greatly values her partnerships with local school districts and believes it is essential to work together to bridge the research to practice gap. Thus, her work is affiliated with the University of Maryland Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC), an interdisciplinary center that focuses on language and literacy issues in education.

Dr. Ana Taboada Barber serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education (CHSE).

Dr. Taboada Barber studies reading comprehension from a cognitive and motivational perspective. Her work centers on studying the influence of specific motivational variables (e.g., autonomy support, self-efficacy) and cognitive variables (e.g., executive function skills; inference making) on the literacy and language development of elementary and middle school students. She is interested in studying reading comprehension within classroom instructional contexts as well as an individual difference variable. As a former English as a Second Language teacher in full language immersion settings, Ana's work in reading comprehension development is principally concentrated within the population of English Learners (ELs) or emergent bilinguals within the United States. More recently she has extended her focus to include Spanish-speaking students in South American countries (e.g., Chile and Argentina). Ana has also turned her attention to the possible roles that executive function skills (i.e., working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) as one component of a larger system of self-regulation, play in the reading comprehension of English Learners and monolingual speakers.

At UMD, Ana is the co-director, together with Jade Wexler, of the Language and Literacy Research Center (LLRC) which aims to promote collaborative research among experts and students interested in literacy and language within the College of Education and local education agencies. Ana is also affiliated with the Language Science Center (LSC) which seeks to advance the science and study of language as a University-wide endeavor.

Keep Educating main page

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Language and Literacy Guides for Special Education Students | UMD College of Education

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Keep Educating Language and Literacy Guides for Special Education Students

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 What could we learn from immersion programs intended to teach the minority language to the majority-language speakers?

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 What could we learn from immersion programs intended to teach the minority language to the majority-language speakers?

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"Similar sociological patterns were found in how the Anglophone community has made this adjustment and in how schools have been called upon to respond to societal change."

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UBC Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Current explanations for the development of immersion programs in relation to language reform in Canada were found to be inadequate and superficial. The lack of attention to the existence of different sociopolitical contexts has, furthermore, flawed the sociological interpretation of programs. A comparative case study and multi-method approach was therefore proposed to examine the historical development of programs in two provinces with very different sociolinguistic and sociopolitical contexts, Quebec and British Columbia. Comparative analysis revealed that both commonalities and differences could be identified in the development of immersion programs in these two provinces and that these have implications for the political and sociological analysis of programs. In both contexts, it was seen that the implementation and expansion of programs has required similar organizational adjustments. The relationship of programs to language reform is, however, very different In Quebec, programs represent a community response to the changing status of French and are only indirectly related to federal efforts to implement a national policy of official bilingualism. In British Columbia, programs were initiated by parents, but eventually became directly related to federal involvement in language education and to Ottawa's efforts to implement a national language policy. By providing support to the parent association "Canadian Parents for French", Ottawa found a constituency in English Canada willing to promote official bilingualism. "Canadian Parents for French" and federal funding have played a critical role in the development of immersion programs in British Columbia; whereas in Quebec, neither of these elements has been an important factor in the expansion of programs. Although the development of immersion programs in Quebec and British Columbia has been framed by divergent language policies, in both provinces, the development of immersion programs reflects the adjustment of the English speaking community to the enhanced status of French. Similar sociological patterns were found in how the Anglophone community has made this adjustment and in how schools have been called upon to respond to societal change.

Item Citations and Data

Permanent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0064465

Rights

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

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A comparative analysis of the development of immersion programs in British Columbia and Quebec : two divergent sociopolitical contexts

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Current explanations for the development of immersion programs in relation to language reform in Canada were found to be inadequate and superficial. The lack of attention to the existence of different sociopolitical contexts has, furthermore, flawed the sociological interpretat