Reading in the Content Areas for Middle Level and Secondary Teachers Course Information
EDUB 535 Reading in the Content Areas for Middle Level and Secondary Teachers
Course Description
In this course, participants focus on how to facilitate and improve reading, writing, vocabulary, and study skills in the content areas. Candidates investigate research and classroom practice and their applicability to expository text. They examine assessment practices, instructional methods and materials and media and technology in the content areas. They learn how to assist learners with diverse abilities.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of the course the student should be able to:
- Identify theories which inform approaches to teaching content reading and writing
- Develop lessons based on the characteristics of expository text that will aid in teaching both reading and writing and content learning
- Explore readability practices and be able to judge readability in multiple ways
- Build and develop a repertoire of varying instructional strategies, materials, media, and technological resources which may be used to meet the needs of students of diverse abilities
Week 1
Lecture: Culture, Literacy, and Motivating Our Students to Read
Outcomes
- Explain what literacies influence students’ thinking and behavior in and out of school
- Explain how personal identity, expectations, and self-efficacy contribute to developing an intention to read
- Describe the kinds of goal orientations and task values students can adopt and which ones are more likely to heighten their motivation to learn
- Describe what can be done to enhance students’ connections with the texts available to them
- Explain the connection between teacher engagement and student engagement
Week 2
Lecture: What Does a Good Reader Look Like?
Outcomes
- Explain what some of the myths of good readers are
- Describe what good readers do when they read
- Describe how a model of the reading process would help you teach
- Discuss what the implications of the model are for teaching
Week 3
Lecture: Assessment
Outcomes
- Describe the steps involved in diagnostic decision making about reading
- Explain how diagnostic decision making will help set sound learning goals and develop appropriate instruction for students
- Describe the major differences between formal and informal assessments
- List some examples of formal and informal assessments related to reading
- Explain how to determine the readability and accessibility of texts for students
Week 4
Lecture: Vocabulary
Outcomes
- Explain why knowing a word is so complicated
- Describe what researchers have learned about teaching vocabulary
- Explain how you could help students learn and use strategies to discover the meanings of unknown words
Week 5
Lecture: Comprehension
Outcomes
- Explain how comprehension-enhancing strategies help students activate background knowledge, set purposes, and promote deeper engagement while reading
- List comprehension strategies to help students activate and integrate knowledge
- Explain how reading strategies like SQ3R and PLAN facilitate independent study
Week 6
Lecture: The Role of Writing and Critical Reading
Outcomes
- Explain how writing can serve as a tool to construct knowledge in classrooms across the disciplines
- Demonstrate how to use writing to assess, promote, and observe learning
- Define critical literacy
- List the activities that foster critical reading
Week 7
Lecture: Group Strategies
Outcomes
- Describe how to apply whole class methods, such as oral reading and discussion techniques, to integrate literacy development with growth in content knowledge
- Explain the principles that guide acknowledged forms of cooperative learning and what activities demonstrate these principles
- Develop a plan to integrate tutoring, including peer and cross-aged variations, into your content area instructional program
Week 8
Lecture: Literacy in the Content Areas
Outcomes
- Examine literacy enhancing strategies in specific content areas
- Discuss the integration of additional strategies that will enable students to become better readers, writers, and learners
The course description, objectives and learning outcomes are subject to change without notice based on enhancements made to the course. October 2011
