Helping Students Access Text Material Successfully

Makes the Invisible Processes of Reading Visible Makes the teacher’s science-based reading processes and knowledge visible to students. Makes students’ reading processes, motivation, strategies and knowledge visible to the teachers and to a community of learners. Helps students gain new awareness from many readers, new strategies for attacking difficult text.

2001 NAEP survey says... “although virtually all adolescents are able to carry out simple reading tasks, only 40% can read well enough to comfortably manage high school texts.”

National Adult Literacy Survey of 2001 says... If students are not literate (that is, they cannot read, write, and do basic arithmetic) 3 out of 4 will go on welfare and while on welfare, 68% will commit a criminal offense.

Active Engagement Format Traditional Format Active Engagement Format Activate and build Prior knowledge Make predictions Raise questions Set purpose Guide ACTIVE Silent reading Clarify, reinforce and extend knowledge Before Reading Assign Reading Read Assignment Discussion to see If students learned main concepts, what they “should have” learned During Reading After Reading

Average Retention Rates Lecture 5% 10% 20% 30% 50% 75% 95% Reading Audio-Visual Demonstration Discussion Group Practice by Doing Teaching Others

Good Reading Strategies As an experienced science reader, what do you do to read a science text successfully?

Good Reading Strategies After reading the text, What did you notice? What was hard? What did you do to make sense of the text as you read?

Problem-solving Strategies "What kinds of things do people do when they come to new words?" How do good readers solve problems with understanding a text?

What Good Readers Do Use existing knowledge to make sense of new information Draw inferences from the text Ask questions before, during, and after reading Monitor their comprehension

What Good Readers Do Use “fix meaning—up” strategies when breaks down Determine what is important Synthesize information to create new thinking

Reading Apprenticeship

Think-aloud with a Model You have 90 secs to make a __________. Your partner takes notes on what you said, what they noticed. For each partner: What are some of the things you noticed? What was challenging? What did you learn from each other?

Think-aloud with Text One partner does a “talking to the text” with a dense piece of reading, thinking aloud with the reading. For each partner: What are some of the things you noticed? What was challenging? What did you learn from each other?

Strategic Times for Think-alouds Previewing a chapter Problem-solving in lab Revising a procedure Dense readings Making connections between real life and content Making connection between content-areas