We were instructed to read the article, "Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades."
My response to this article:
This article was very helpful and emphasized a large amount of good points. I think that content area literacy is one of the most important parts of teaching. In order to learn, students must be able to and be instructed on how to read and write. Reading and writing have no limits on how individuals can read and write to learn. There are many different ways to do these two things.
One things that amazes me about this article is the statement that students spent on average only 3.6 minutes with informational text per day in certain classrooms. That is just unreal to me. Students need to be learning and they only way they can learn is by reading and writing. Students need to do more than just listen to a teacher talk for the whole day or class period.
I will admit, I am not the best writer or reader. I am grown in these two areas since I have started college, but I am still learning. My teachers did not teach me well at my high school. I am from a really small town and I was a cheerleader. If you were a cheerleader, dancer, football player, or on any other sport team, you really didn't have to do anything to pass. I didn't realize then, that it would ultimately affect my future as an individual, a student, and an employee.
I do have a few questions that are lingering on my mind about this article:
1. How can we, as teachers, help the students and assure that we include content area literacy in our classrooms.
2. How do we make it engaging for the students to read?
-MB
I feel the same way about not learning as much as I should have about reading and writing in high school and elementary school, and being "thrown to the wolves" once you are in college. It is important for teachers to teach comprehension skills and how to put together previous knowledge and just learned information when writing, so future students feel like they know more.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your second question, I think we can make informational texts more engaging for students to read by allowing them to read different types of texts. I loved the idea of text of the day, that was on the prezzi from class. I still remember enjoying reading Weekly Readers, a children's magazine with current events, in third grade. So changing up the routine of just reading books is great!