Tools for Teaching Content Literacy Strategies for incorporating literacy across the curriculum.

Why? State Standards, Academic Recovery Plan How? Modeling and help in the classroom Who? You and me

Admit Slip: Establishing a Purpose for Reading Why? To read for a specific purpose. Clear purposes add to student motivation for and encouragement in reading.

Admit Slips Continued How? One of the easiest ways to do this may be to copy an excerpt from the reading for the next day and have the students read it and write three questions they think the next day’s reading will answer. (This can even be done at the beginning of class to introduce material.)

Admit Slips Continued When students begin class the next day, or begin that section in your class the same day, have them discuss their predictions and questions (ideally in small groups). Then compile everything into a class list. Students then group this list of questions based on commonalities and decide on the three to five most important questions they believe the reading will answer.

Admit Slips Continued You will find this section marked in the textbook in Green.

REAP (Read, Encode, Annotate, Ponder) This supports increased comprehension as it focuses on the main idea. A ER P R: Read the text. Jot down the title and the author E: Encode the text by putting the main ideas in your own words. A: Annotate the text by writing a statement that summarizes the important points. P: Ponder the text by thinking and talking about what you learned. Ask yourself why the author wrote the text. What do you think the author hopes you’ll learn?

REAP Continued You will find this section marked in the textbook in BLUE.

GIST (Generating Interactions Between Schemata and Texts) Like REAP only this goes paragraph by paragraph and the student will form a summary of the paragraph. GIST Read the first sentence and summarize contents in fifteen words or less. Read second sentence and summarize the first two sentences in fifteen words or less. Continue until paragraph is read and then summarize the entire paragraph in fifteen words or less. Paragraph Summary

GIST Continued You will find this section marked in the textbook in RED.

Anticipating Content: Here and Now Why? Activities like this can lead to higher student interest because they establish a purpose for reading, increase students’ background knowledge for the content, and develop student investment in their learning. What is it? It’s a quick-write prompt you create for your students.

Anticipating Content: Here and Now Continued Sample Prompts Math- if you were studying fractions: Think of a time in your life or something you have/own when you wished you only had a part of what you have. What parts would you keep and what parts would you give up? You can use this to help form a fraction word problem with the class. Science- if you were reading about the five senses: From where you are sitting in this room, describe everything you are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching at this moment. Then, choose the one sense you feel you could lose the most easily and describe how this moment would be different for you with that loss.

K-W-L, K-W-L Plus, and B-K-W-L-Q K - What the students know W - What the students want to learn L - what the students learned K-W-L Plus- Students refer to the chart to categorize what they have learned. Place the title/ subject in the middle of the map, the categories are the major branches, and explanatory concepts are added to the major branches. B - Background knowledge that you build with them before you begin the chart Q - Questions either that are new or that the student still has after going through the content

The Titanic Build Background What do I know? What do I want to know? What did I learn? What new questions do I have? Social Studies: The sinking of the Titanic English: Non-fiction text Science: Weather conditions/ icebergs Math: Figuring out how many survivors there were in each class and total survivors. Weights and measurements of the boat. Number of life boats for the number of people and the ratio of those who could be saved versus the number that were saved of the 3,123 people on board, how many boats should there have been, and the number of deaths.

Other strategies that are successful Anticipation Guide Cornell Note-Taking SPAWN Exit Slips