Content Literacy Instruction: An Answer to Low Literacy Achievement in MS

Content Literacy Instruction:

An Answer to Low Literacy Achievement in MS

When the text is hard, sometimes I give up. –A Mississippi middle school student.

Low Achievement in Content Areas

Mississippi has a history of low academic achievement. One-third of students did not meet grade-level expectations in math, science, and US History on the high school subject area test in 2009[i]. Mississippi students perform dismally on national assessments. For the most recent administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress:

• only 15% of eighth grade students were proficient in math.
• only 14% of eight graders were proficient in science.
• only 17% of students were proficient in reading.
• only 15% of eighth graders were proficient in writing[ii].

The vast majority of Mississippi students were unable to analyze scientific data, apply science principles in every day life, select and use data to solve problems, make inferences form data and graphs, use abstract thinking to solve problems, organize writing, or write with clarity.

Content Area Achievement is Related to Literacy Achievement

To succeed in content area learning, students must be able to:

• Know, understand, remember and use vocabulary.
• Distinguish between multiple meanings of words (plane is different in math than in geography).
• Read and interpret content texts (textbooks, primary sources, websites, lab manuals, tables and charts, scientific articles, etc.).
• Draw conclusions and make inferences based on the texts they read.
• Write to summarize and demonstrate learning.
• Support ideas in writing with details and reasons.

Social and Economic Impact

The impact of low achievement in literacy and in the content areas is clear. Content area reading and writing are linked with economic success, drop out rates, and public safety.

oStudents who drop out of school often do so at least in part because of difficulties with literacy[iii].

oStudents’ ability to use literacy in content areasis a strong predictor of their success in beginning college courses[iv].

oThe job opportunities that are on the rise in the 21st century require higher literacy demands than ever before.Those jobs that require only limited literacy are disappearing at an unprecedented rate[v].

oStudents who drop out or are expelled from school commit more crimes, including more violent crimes, than their peers who stay in school “To find one potential murderer, we need to consider just 72 of hose who have been permanently excluded from school, compared with 78,000 of their age group in the population.”[vi]

oAccording to Commissioner Epps of Mississippi’s Department of Corrections, “Being illiterate and not having a good educational background are two of the major reasons why most offenders begin down the path of self-destruction.”[vii]

What can we do? Content literacy instruction

Reading and writing are not the same in all fields.

• In history classes, students need to be able to read primary sources, to interpret old and arcane language, and to read things like timelines and primary sources. They need to be able to write persuasive essays and write to demonstrate understanding and critical thinking[viii].
• In mathematics, students need to be able to read story problems and use graphs and tables to solve problems. Students also need to be able to write to explain their reasoning[ix].
• Science texts often use common vocabulary words in new and unfamiliar ways. Science texts also focus on presenting information rather than telling a story.[x]
• Textbooks are common in content area instruction, and reading them is nothing like reading the novels and stories elementary students typically read in reading classes.

Students can be taught to use research-based strategies to read and write in content learning. For example, students can be taught the specific conventions of content texts—that is, they can be taught to read and write like a historian, mathematician, or a scientist. The more that students are taught the specialized literacy skills in the content they are studying, the more they will learn the important concepts. In addition, adolescent learners benefit from learning content literacy strategies that will help them read and interpret all texts. These strategies have been proven to work, according to a review of research conducted by the federal government’s Institute for Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse[xi]. Strategies that are the most for improving comprehension and content area learning include:

• Explicit vocabulary instruction including careful selection of words to be learned based on their future usefulness, repeated exposure to and practice with new words, and instruction in multiple meaning words (what works)
• Accessing prior knowledge: when students think about what they already know about a topic before, during, and after reading, they are more likely to comprehend and learn (Rumelhart, 1980)
• Using text features and visual cues: Applying knowledge of text features such as bold print, italics, captions, table of contents, and others, can help students to mentally organize information, to determine the importance of ideas, and to find answers to questions.
• Making inferences: Students with low achievement often read very literally, they do not read between the line. Explicit instruction in making inferences can support deeper comprehension.
• Engagement: Students learn content area concepts better when they are engaged, when they have opportunities to discuss their learning with their peers and are helped to make connections between their out-of-school lives and the content texts they are reading and writing.

What are we doing?

Too many students do not learn content literacy in elementary, middle, and high schools classes. There are many reasons for this:

oReading and language arts teachers tend to focus on teaching students to read stories and poems.Content teachers often see their job as teaching concepts, and not as teaching “reading.” Content literacy falls in the gap.

oNot all teachers know about content literacy instruction.

oBeginning teachers who get their degree from a 4-year institution are required to have at least some literacy instruction, but most institutions of higher learning do not require a specific course in content literacy instruction.

oThere are no content literacy requirements for new teachers who get their license through an alternate route program.More than half of middle and high school teachers received an alternate route license in 2009.

Recommendations

oReview current practices in content literacy for teacher certification programs.

oStrengthen requirements for content literacy pedagogy courses in preservice teacher education, including both 4-year traditional and alternate route programs.

oProvide professional development in content literacy instruction for practicing teachers in grades 4-12.

oRequire content literacy professional development as a component of the license renewal process (how say this, CEUs)

oProvide administrators with professional development in Content Literacy

oprovide teacher educators with

Who We Are: The Higher Education Literacy Council is composed of faculty members from all 15 institutions of higher learning in Mississippi.The Higher Education Literacy Council collaborates with the Mississippi Department of Education to improve literacy teacher education in our state.

Contact Devon Brenner, Mississippi State University 662-325-7119 or dgb19@msstate.edu Stacy Reeves, University of SouthernMississippi, XXXXXXX