Teaching Literacy - Assignment Example

Every brings in his experiences, emotions, feelings, opinions and views to a It is evident that while teaching strategies in content area literacy, if students are able to access their prior knowledge, can be very valuable. Once the learner is able to make connections, with the background knowledge and experiences, can easily grasp what they are reading. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004) quote Pearson, Rochler, Dole & Duffy (1992), who insisted that,"Learning occurs when new information relates to an existing schema"(p. 326.) The demands of making meanings, stresses the students to activate their prior knowledge and schemata abilities. Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn. (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p.326) writes that, "Content area teaching has a detailed link with schema theory and prior knowledge."The notion of 'prior knowledge' comprises of few subordinate ideas, which are the 'characteristics of prior knowledge', 'historical back ground', the circumstances of learning and 'classroom acts' (Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326) write that, "This collection of related, hierarchically arranged ideas is a schema." Few followers of this theory even believed that the single most influential factor is the existing and prior knowledge of the readers on which it depends that what he ends up learning from the material (Eric Digest). The accuracy, sufficiency and appropriateness of a schema, needs to be tackled by the instructor in a very delicate and planned manner. Students can make most out of their schemas if only the teachers know how to activate it. (Lapp, Flood & Farnan, 2004, p. 326).The most common techniques used in a classroom are, brain storming, frees write, word association task and direct experience. The use of schema theory is very useful in a classroom because it makes the students connect to the text and help them keep focused. Secondly, they have a role to play by contributing their own experiences and opinions along with their reflection on their personal experiences which will help them to assess themselves. The renewed awareness in reading was reinforced by the International Reading Association in 1999. The document focused on "advanced levels of literacy" and considered "their ability to read will be crucial". Many instructors turned to interactive manner of teaching reading. Boothe and Walter (1999) quote McCormick, T. (1988) who writes that, "It one of the most promising approaches to the theory of reading today." Boothe and Walter (1999) write that, "An interactive reading model is a reading model that recognizes the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously throughout the reading process." But the reader needs "to interacting with the text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning (Goodman, K. 1981). Most of the reading models, share a common postulation, that many "variables impact student's learning from text" (Pearson, Kamil, Bar & Mosenthal, 2000, p.647). They concerned themselves with cognitive psychology, schema, instructional strategies and the text. Boothe and Walter (1999) while quoting Rumelhart, D. 1985 write, "write that, "These various sources of information appear to interact in many complex ways during the process of reading In this scenario the teacher has to play a role of an instructional designer and their tool is 'text'. Once students are able to develop an understanding of text and identify the text structures then the road begins for towards independent reading. According to Buehl (2009, p.72) the benefits of involving the students in this model means "to condition the students to read material at different rates for verifying purposes" is similar to the core principle of content area literacy. The learners must have the skill to practice various kinds of texts. Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 335) suggested the use of "real world text" to prepare them for the real world out of the school. The reader connects to the text at three level; text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world. The learner needs to adapt his/her strategies according to the text. Pearson, Kamil, Barr & Mosenthal (2009, p.647) write that, "Strategies are considered appropriate when they match the demands of the texts and tasks." Content area literacy makes a basic demand of acquiring and applying reading and writing strategies to construct knowledge, which means to elicit meanings and master the understanding of the texts and the solutions seems to be scaffold reading. The core of literacy content area is learning to learn for lifetime. It sees studying and reading as an interactive processes. This is done to make the "struggling learners confident, competent and independent users of strategies," wrote Lewis (2008, p.179.) North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (2009) wrote that, "Scaffolding is an instructional technique whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifts responsibility to the students." This is one very popular framework to bring the best readers out through planned instructions and help. Garcia (2002, p.99) wrote that, "A scaffold reading strategy is a set of pre-reading, during reading and post reading activities."These all are inter related and build on each other but still the most significant remains the prior knowledge of a learner. Wilhelm, Baker & Dube (2001) wrote that," Learning always proceeds from the known to the new." The selection of the text, the role of teachers and instructions are crucial. The teacher plays the key role by constructing, connecting and creating the environment "to allow the students to do as much as they can on their own, and then to intervene and provide assistance when it is needed so that the task can be successfully completed" wrote Wilhelm, Baker & Dube (2001). Now the question rises that how the scaffoldings needs to be tackled during reading assignments. Clay and Cazden (1992) suggest "probes or cues" for the students for their" active consideration. Over the years, scaffolding strategies have come a long way. The best ways of scaffolding are mentioned by Lewis (2008) , who mentions the question-answer technique (Rapheal,1982), think aloud (Davey, 1983), Reciprocal teaching (Palinscare and Brown,1984), graphic organizers (Burke, 2002), power notes (1996) and generating interaction between schemata and text by Cunningham (1982). Wilhelm, Baker & Dube (2001) pointed out the strategiesof protocols, drama and visualization strategies andsymbolic story representation. The guidelines by the teacher make it possible for the students to learn the maximum from the material. The teacher designs the framework of the class. Previewing, anticipation, brain storming, posing careful questions, problem solving and finally drawing the conclusion, are scaffolding techniques to foster the reading habit in the learner. References Buehl, D. (2009). Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning. New Jersey: International Reading Assoc. Boothe, K., & Walter, L. B. (1999).What is an interactive reading model Retrieved June 25, 2009, from http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/Literacy/ReferenceMaterials/GlossaryOfLiteracyTerms/WhatIsAnInteractiveReadingMode.htm Clay, M., & Cazden, C.(1992). A Vygotskian interpretation of reading recovery. In L.C. Moll (Ed.),Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of socio-historical psychology(pp. 206-222). New York: Cambridge University Press. Garcia, G. G. (2002). English learners: reaching the highest level of English literacy. New Jersey: International Reading Assoc. Grady, K. (2002). Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest, ED469930. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/area.htm Greece Central School District (2009). Reading Strategies. Scaffolding Students' Interactions with Texts. Retrieved June 25, 2009, from http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/reading%20strategies%20index.htm Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. Portland: Stenhouse. Lapp, D., Flood, J., & Farnan, N. (2004). Content Area Reading and Learning. New York: Routledge. Lewis, J. (2008). Reading success for struggling adolescent learners. New York: Guilford Press. Literacy Matters (2008). Definition: What is Content Literacy Retrieved June 25, 2009, from http://www.literacymatters.org/content/overview/definition.htm North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (2009). Scaffolding. Retrieved June 24, 2009, from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/learning/lr1scaf.htm Pearson, D. P., Kamil, M. L., Barr, R., & Mosenthal, P. B. (2000). Handbook of reading strategies. Philadelphia: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wilhelm, J. D., Baker, T. N., & Dube, J. H. (2001). Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy. New Hampshire: Heinemann. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In VV Davydov (Ed.) & N. Minick (Trans.), LS Vygotsky, Collected works: General psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Plenum. (Original works published in 1934). Read More