1. Sally S. Gabb Reading Skills Specialist Bristol Community College Sally.Gabb@bristolcc.edu

3. Agenda: I - Introduction: The path to college level reading & writing II - Testing & placement III - Reading: comparative standards IV – Reading: comparative instruction V - Writing: comparative standards VI - Writing: comparative instruction VII - Connecting Reading & Writing VII -Motivation & engagement

4.  “Reading and writing are a natural pair. Pre- writing requires reading for ideas; analyzing text requires writing. Research shows that this combination has potential to contribute in powerful ways to thinking.”  Dr. Lana Myers, associate professor of English, Lone Star College, Houston, TX

5.  What are your strongest memories about the following: ◦ Reading assignments during your first year in college ◦ Writing assignments during your first year in college

6. Placement testing: Don’t confuse the road with the destination!  Placement tests may or may not provide an accurate picture of student reading & writing skills  Prepare students for placement tests with practice tests  Primary placement instruments: COMPASS; ACCUPLACER

7. College Placement Practice Tests: http://www.compass-test-practice.com/ http://www.collegeboard.com http://www.google.com http://www.swccd.edu/~asc/

8. The ACCUPLACER Reading Placement: Adaptive test: increases in difficulty as test taker succeeds: higher levels = higher scores Test content: vocabulary, text structure (main idea, details, etc.), sentence relationships (patterns of organization transition words), inference

9. Reading for Transition to College & Career:  Standards for mastery: ◦ GED passage vs. college readiness: ABE ELA framesworks: identify GED level mastery www.doe.mass.edu/acls/frameworks/ELA.doc College reading & writing standards (College Board) www.google.com

10. Reading for Transition to College & Career: Teachers who are alert to the complex interactions among these elements:  engagement  reading skill  reading task  text are better equipped to differentiate their instructional strategies to help all students become effective readers.

11. Reading skills for college:  Vocabulary: knowledge and strategies  Three stages of the reading process  Connecting to prior knowledge (schema)  Basic comprehension skills/ strategies  Identify the author’s purpose/intended audience

12. Connecting new information to existing knowledge builds the web of knowing that enables us to retain information in our long term memory.

13. Reading skills for college:  Mood, tone, figures of speech  Analysis: Fiction/ non fiction; Fact or opinion?  Reading to learn: memory strategies  Textbook strategies

14.  Vocabulary: tools for college reading and writing  http://www.swccd.edu http://www.swccd.edu  http://www.quizlet.com http://www.quizlet.com

15. Basic Comprehension Strategies:  Three stages of the reading process – reading to comprehend and learn from text  Before you start reading  While you read  After you read

16.  Before you read: ◦ Identify topic ◦ Skim ◦ Connect with prior knowledge ◦ Predict & question

17.  While you read:  Self monitor: do I understand  Question: am I finding answers

18.  After you read:  Did I answer my questions?  What new questions did I find  What is the author telling me about the topic?

19. Textbook reading: Get to know your textbook!! http://faculty.bucks.edu/specpop/reading.htm

20. Writing for Transition to College & Career:  Writing is a recursive process.  Experienced writers do not usually follow a linear progression of stages as they compose a text  Experienced writers are flexible in how they approach a writing situation  Experienced writers draw on a variety of strategies to carry out and manage the numerous complex tasks involved in composing  There are no set formulas for making these decisions

21.  Learning to write is hard work!!  To manage these processes independently, novice writers require:  effective instruction  good feedback  clear models

22.  To develop, novice writers must:  learn and practice effective writing strategies  receive regular feedback on their writing  develop a repertoire of strategies to call upon.

24. While you read:

25.  text2mindmap pdf - adobe reader text2mindmap pdf - adobe reader  http://www.text2mindmap.com/ http://www.text2mindmap.com/

26. Engaging students in reading:  Self selected reading  Book club activities  Personal reading log

27. Engaging students in reading & writing: Common reading experience: the BCC OneBook  Integration into content  Speakers/ youtube film

28.  Engaging students in writing:  Dialogue journals  Current events summaries  Class newspaper  Group reports/ research

29.  READ  WRITE

30.  "The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education."  Ralph Waldo Emerson