1. Literacy in the Upper Grades
Research
Literacy in the Upper Grades

2. 2004 Carnegie Corporation Report
Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy
Secondary Educators must:
Select materials of interest to students
Differentiate fact from opinion
Integrate new information with what student’s already know
2004 Carnegie Corporation Report

3. Learning to Read ~ Reading to Learn
Shift from early grades focus of learning to read to the next step of reading to learn.
Older students text more complex and comprehensive than elementary textbooks
Older students not as motivated to read
JCS Student Survey: Only 26% of students surveyed indicate that they read for pleasure on their own.

4. Improving Reading Instruction
Professional development
Ongoing formative assessment of students – prevent overlooking learning gaps
Ongoing formative assessment of programs – evaluate the effectiveness of programs

5. Translating Research into Practice
Provide a wide range of strategies allowing students to:
Become familiar with written language
Develop comprehension skills
Become enthusiastic readers
Apply reading strategies to new situations

6. Older students become better readers when they learn to:
read narrative and expository text,
understand what they read,
use the strategies flexibly,
be persistent in trying new strategies, and
communicate with others about what they have read.

8. Instructional Strategies to Improve Student Achievement
Identify similarities and differences
Summarize and take notes
Reinforce effort and provide recognition
Participation in learning groups
Provide feedback
Generate and use hypotheses
Use cues, questions, and advance organizers
Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, (ASCD, 2001) Marzano, Pickering, Pollack

9. Content Area Reading Content area reading:
Helps students make connection between they already know and the new information presented.
Teachers must help students link reading and new learning in content areas.

10. 3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading
The Teacher – must know the subject area, how to motivate students to learn, and the reading process.
Teacher must motivate, instruct, and guide to help students make the connection between what they already know and the new information.

11. 3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading
The Student – Critical elements include the student’s prior knowledge, experiences, language development, reading ability, and attitude toward school

12. 3 Factors that Affect Content Area Reading
The Content – must be complete, interesting, and meaningful or students will retain content for teacher’s test (regurgitating facts), but perform poorly on year end standardized tests.

13. Learning is cemented after 17-41 rehearsals.
How is content area reading taught?
Interaction with the text
Making sense of what they are reading
Applying reading strategies to help them understand

14. Consider Prior Knowledge
(The content knowledge and person experience the reader brings to the text)
Pre-reading strategies
Brainstorming
Asking questions
Providing analogies
Discussing the topic

15. Consider Text Features
Science and social studies (and math) texts are above the reading level of many students.
Common text patterns:
Comparison/contrast
Descriptive pattern
Episode pattern
Time sequence
Process/cause-effect
General to specific

16. Vocabulary
Vocabulary terms are rarely part of the content students already know.
Least effective means – looking up words in glossary and writing definitions.
Students needs strategies to learn new concepts and make connections.

17. Four Levels of Word Recognition
Full Word Knowledge – students understand then meaning and how the word changes in context.
Partial Word Knowledge – Student know the work in context and can use it in their writing
Initial Word Knowledge – Students recognize the word and can pronounce it, but do not know its meaning.
Unknown Word – Student cannot read or recognize the word.

18. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Initially Provide Students with a Description, Explanation, or Example as Opposed to a Formal Definition
When introducing a new term or phrase it is useful to avoid a formal definition---at least at the start. This is because formal definitions are typically not very "learner friendly." Provide students with a description, explanation, or example much like what one would provide a friend who asked what a term or phrase meant.

19. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Have Students Generate Their Own Descriptions, Explanations, or Examples
Once a explanation has been provided to students they should be asked to restate that information in their own words.
It is important that students do not copy exactly what the teacher has offered.
Student descriptions, explanations, and examples should be their own constructions using their own background knowledge and experiences .

20. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Have Students Represent Each Term or Phrase Using a Graphic Representation, Picture, or Pictograph
Students should be asked to represent the term or phrase in some graphic, picture, or pictographic form. This allows them to process the information in a different modality---an imagery form as opposed to a linguistic form. It also provides deepens students’ understanding of the new term or phrase.

21. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary Notebook
An academic vocabulary notebook will help students develop an understanding of a set of terms and phrases that are important to the academic content in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. This implies that the terms and phrases that are taught using this approach represent a related set of knowledge that expands and deepens from year to year.

22. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary Notebook
Space should also be provided for students to write additional comments about the terms and phrases as time goes on. As will be mentioned in the next step, students should be engaged in activities that allow them to review the terms. As these activities occur, students can be asked to add to the entries in their notebooks perhaps correcting misconceptions, adding new information, or making linkages with other terms and phrases.

23. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Have Students Keep an Academic Vocabulary Notebook
All terms and phrases are kept in one academic notebook that has a or divider for each subject area. This would allow students to make comparisons between terms and phrases from different subject areas. The academic notebook might also have a "tab" or divider entitled "my words." In this section students would record terms and phrases of interest gleaned from their own reading experiences in or outside of school.

24. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and Provide Students with Activities That Add to Their Knowledge Base
If students experience a new term or phrase once only, they will be left with their initial, partial understanding of the term or phrase. To develop deep understanding of the terms and phrases in their academic vocabulary notebooks students must be engaged in review activities.

25. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and Provide Students with Activities That Add to Their Knowledge Base
Once a week or perhaps more frequently, students might be offered activities that add to their knowledge base about the terms and phrases in their notebooks.
Jefferson County School’s Academic Vocabulary *Vocabulary for grades * Large collection of activities and games aimed at vocabulary development.

26. Marzano’s Vocabulary Instruction Steps
Periodically Review the Terms and Phrases and Provide Students with Activities That Add to Their Knowledge Base
After each of these activities students should be asked to make corrections, additions, and changes to the entries in their notebooks. In this way, students' knowledge of the academic terms and phrases might deepen and become a sound foundation on which to understand the academic content presented in class.

27. The Blame Game

28. The Blame Game
“It is unreasonable to expect that any student could acquire enough reading competence by the 5th grade to carry him or her through middle school, high school and life, almost half of the middle schools offer no systematic reading instruction or make it available for remedial readers or as an elective.”
Irvin and Connors, 1989

29. The Blame Game
When struggling readers get to the middle grades, some middle school teachers blame elementary teachers. Even after the efforts of the middle school teachers, a few struggling students go on to high school, and the middle school teachers get blamed.

30. The Blame Game
WHOSE FAULT IS IT? CERTAINLY NOT MINE The college professor said, "Such wrong in the student is a shame, Lack of preparation in high school is to blame." Said the high school teacher, "Good heavens, that boy is a fool. The fault, of course, is with the middle school."

31. The Blame Game
WHOSE FAULT IS IT? CERTAINLY NOT MINE The middle school teacher said, "From such stupidity may I be spared, They send him to me so unprepared." The elementary teacher said, "The kindergartners are block-heads all. They call it preparation; why, it's worse than none at all."

32. The Blame Game
WHOSE FAULT IS IT? CERTAINLY NOT MINE The kindergarten teacher said, "Such lack of training never did I see, What kind of mother must that woman be." The mother said, "Poor helpless child, he's not to blame For you see, his father's folks are all the same."

33. The Blame Game
WHOSE FAULT IS IT? CERTAINLY NOT MINE Said the father, at the end of the line, "I doubt the rascal's even mine!"
Middle school teachers should think of their students as athletes at the beginning of their careers in reading, practicing basic content reading strategies until they become automatic. Students will gain the skills to become superstars in any subject.