What skills should our students have when they begin independently learning from reading informational text?
Sample list:
- General skills for successfully reading text.
- A vocabulary to support learning from the text.
- Knowing how to approach the text based on the content area structure.
- Able to read text fluently.
- A perspective on the reasons for using the text to learn.
- The background knowledge to support meaning from the text.
How can we measure our students’ ability to read content specific text?
Most content diagnostic assessments measure knowledge, not the skills needed to learn from content specific text.
Fluency is not equal
Fluency in language arts will not be equal to fluency in other content areas. This is especially true for English learners, and those struggling with grade level reading. It is difficult to measure student fluency in content areas and takes much time to check all students for fluency. It is possible to check on targeted students periodically with a small group read aloud.
Assessing text structure
In upper elementary and middle school, it is possible to design content area assessments that have items or tasks to measure student readiness for learning from the text. The assessment should include passages that mirror the text structures students will commonly encounter in the subject. Add questions that find and communicate an understanding of the passage.
As you create assessments that measure the ability to read content specific text, include passages with content area structure that vary in complexity. This will allow you to analyze results for the ability to read and measure comprehension of content knowledge. Since most item banks do not have many items or tasks that assess content structure, you may need to change or create items that use text from course materials.
Ideas to monitor progress:
- Fluency checks with targeted students.
- Text dependent questions that require information from common content area structure.
- Student ability to make inferences from text that varies in complexity.
- Check on the ability to use background information from past content knowledge and apply to current learning.
- Write in the content area that shows an understanding of reading in the content area. For example, a prompt that requires the student to analyze a chart or graph that is supported by content area text.
- Assessments designed specifically for content area comprehension.
- Items and tasks that measure the cognitive effort to read an informational text with complexity.
- Content area comprehension assessments that measure…
- Skills needed to read in a content area
- Vocabulary that support reading in the content area
Do we need a scaffolding plan?
English learners, and students with poor reading skills, benefit from much of the same skill development and modeling. During the transition, understanding specific student needs, while helping all students, will develop the skills necessary to learn from text. It will take scaffolding techniques, and additional support for many students, not just your English learners. A team support structure provides much more consistency across your classrooms.
What experiences should we use and track?
It will be important to plan, and then track, the experiences of students beginning independent reading and learning from text. Keeping a record of student experiences helps improve practice by letting you know what worked, and the methods that either need to revise or remove. Interventions also benefit from this information to keep of record of unique learning experiences.
Managing your materials and resources
Content management is necessary to keep track of resources and control the quality of text. If the team knows where to get resources and trusts the quality, you will increase instructional effectiveness and consistency.
- Textbooks
- Online resources
- Media based
- Intranet materials
- Library resources
Skills and knowledge to learn in the future
Informational text comes in many formats. It will be important to plan out the experiences of these different formats for your students.
- Authentic text
- E-reader
- PDF text
- Website articles
- Blog text
- Multimedia information
- Text books
It should balance experience with new text formats between learning to read the content and gaining content knowledge.