This reflection is supposed to be about my prior knowledge of Content Area Reading and Writing as well some of the problems I encountered in teaching at the secondary level. However prior to attending this institution I was the grade one teacher at a primary school and so lack the experience of teaching the subjects that I am currently pursuing at the secondary level. This fact makes it impossible for me to write up a reflection based on the experience of teaching secondary learners.
Content Area Reading and Writing is ones ability to use reading and writing skills to perform in different subject areas. I believe that this ability is crucial in order for a learner to perform in any subject area. It is believed that solely language teachers are responsible for teaching student to read and write and that this learning should occur only in a language class. However this should not be accepted as fact as a child’s ability to read and write affects his/her performance in all subject areas. Even in a subject such as Mathematics where it is mainly numeric, writing is necessary and a child needs to read in order to understand what is required of him. This simply proves that every subject teacher should be responsible for ensuring that a child is taught to read and write in all subject areas.
Content Area Reading and Writing is essential in equipping students with the ability and possibility of better performing in all subject areas.
Wheatney Francis
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Finally...... I am happy that you were able to publish your first post. I am sorry about the technical difficulties that you have been experiencing.
ReplyDeleteWell Wheatknee, I did not realize that you had not taught at a Secondary school. However since you taught at the primary school you should be able to identify with most, if not all of what we have been discussing. I am glad though that you recognize that developing strategic readers is not confined to the language arts classroom but is part of every teacher's job. Did you take time to help your first graders apply the reading skills they acquired in Language Arts classes to Science, Social studies or Mathematics lessons? Or did you only focused on reading and writing when you were doing Language Arts? Do you also think that content area instruction is well appropriate for students at the grade one level? Why or why not?
The article I read in order to complete my assignment (double entry journal) highlighted that ‘While thinking aloud during shared reading may seem like old news to teachers in grades K-5, we found as we visited the classrooms of middle and secondary teachers…that we were unlikely to see this type of instruction.’
ReplyDeleteBased on this quote I would think that teachers in the primary schools use various strategies such as think alouds and shared reading to assist students with comprehension of text. Since primary school teachers are focused on the learning to read stage from kindergarten to about standard two, I would think that these teachers would frequently employ strategies such as the two that are mentioned above.
p. 378 Lapp, D., Fisher, D., Grant, M. (2008) ‘You can read this text – I’ll show you
how’: Interactive Comprehension. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(5), 372-383.
As a grade one teacher i did in fact help my students to apply the reading skills that they aquire in language arts to their other subjects. At this stage much focus is placed on trying to teach them how to read and i realized that the time allocated for the language arts was insufficient if they are to learn to read only in that allocated time. Also i felt that having them try the reading (using text features mainly) in other subjects provide them with practice, giving them more opportunity to read. Doing this also showed the students the importance of reading. If they realise that reading is such a big part of not just the english circle, but is important for math, science, even art, or the students favorite subject, then they are more zealous to learn to read and comprehend text.
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