Reading in the Content Areas

Scientific Basis

Reading instruction in the primary grades focuses importantly on the skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, sight vocabulary, expanding vocabulary knowledge, increasing reading fluency, and comprehension. This stage is sometimes referred to as “learning to read.” However, as students progress into the upper elementary and middle school grades, these developing reading skills are applied to content-area reading, a transition often referred to as “reading to learn” (Simmons & Kameenui, 1998).

As states define standards and benchmarks for student achievement, the challenges that students face as they progress from the primary grades into upper elementary and middle school become clear.

Emphasis on subject-matter reading begins to exert its full force on all students at this stage as they begin to study history–social science and science… Seventh grade marks another transition expected of students.…they should have mastered reading aloud narrative and expository text fluently and accurately, with appropriate pacing, intonation, and expression.
(Content Standards and Instructional Practices Grades Four Through Eight, 1999)

Research has shown that unfortunately for many students, the process of learning to read has not been completed (Kamil, 2003; McEwan, 2002; Rand 2004). And, for an even greater number of students, the process of reading to learn does not happen effectively on its own without further instruction. Many students require a continuation of the same level of consistent, systematic instruction up to and through the middle schools grades. Intensive and systematic instruction in word recognition is imperative.

In particular, reading comprehension (the process of gaining meaning from text) is most challenging for students when they are required to read text that contains a high level of information, such as text that is encountered in the content areas of history, science, or math (Black, 2005; Fuentes, 1998). Both research and effective practice have shown that systematic instruction in reading content-rich texts is very important for students’ continuing success in school and life (Klinger, Vaughn & Schumm, 1998). “To be able to provide such remediation, teachers may need additional training, for many seventh-grade teachers have not been trained to teach developmental reading skills (Content Standards and Instructional Practices Grades Four Through Eight, 1999).

At the middle school level, subject matter domains become more distinct and departmentalized. Often the only person responsible for helping students read effectively is the language arts teacher. This is unfortunate for two reasons:

1. The middle school language arts teacher often does not have the training to teach reading comprehension effectively.
2. The teachers of science, math, and social studies do not view reading instruction as part of their instructional responsibility.

As a result, students who need help in reading frequently do get it. And those students, studies have shown, are the majority (Black, 2005).

In 1992, David Pearson and his colleagues published the findings of a study that identified the characteristics of successful readers (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, & Duffy, 1992). They noted that a successful reader does not simply absorb the information provided in text. Instead, a successful reader interacts with the text by carrying on a regular dialogue with it. The more knowledge and skills the reader brings to the reading of text, the more meaning the reader takes away from the interaction. In the course of such reading dialogues, good readers exhibit the following characteristics:

• They use existing knowledge to make sense of new information.
• They ask questions about the text before, during, and after reading.
• They draw inferences from the text.
• They monitor their comprehension.
• They use “fix-up” strategies when meaning breaks down.
• They determine what is important.
• They synthesize information to create new thinking.

Pearson’s work has created a strong and growing effort to teach a set of reading strategies, systematically and explicitly, that will strengthen students’ reading abilities and make them successful readers. These strategies become the “tools” that readers can bring to their dialogue with text. Results have shown that these strategies can be taught and that they do work (Guthrie, Wigfield, & Perencevich, 2003).

The Readingpen can be a very effective and easy-to-use support to facilitate students’ dialogue with text. The Readingpen encourages readers to get into the habit of helping themselves—first with the Readingpen, and then with other helpful tools and strategies that lead to more productive interactions with texts.

For example, if a student is unable to determine the meaning of a word, it may be because he or she is mispronouncing it. He or she sees the word “digit,” connects it to the verb “dig,” and recalls the two-word expression, “dig it.” But the reader senses something is wrong because it’s not making sense; the reading dialogue is halted. Imagine the same reader scanning the word with the Readingpen and immediately hearing the word pronounced correctly. Once heard, the reader recognizes the word and is able to make sense out of the text and proceed.

The Readingpen can also help readers build successful reading behaviors in four key areas: questioning, monitoring, fixing-up, and determining importance.

Questioning
Good readers are constantly wondering about their understanding of the words they are reading. In content-rich, non-fiction text, new words are both common and important. Failure to pay attention to them leads to growing loss of meaning, as the text proceeds with the assumption that the reader is following and continuing to build meaning. The Readingpen can make it significantly easier for students to regularly question their own vocabulary understanding and to check a word’s meaning, thereby building their vocabulary through self-questioning and gaining answers.

Monitoring
Good readers continuously monitor their comprehension. Building vocabulary, which proceeds most effectively as part of the reading process, is not simply a matter of adding brand new words to one’s knowledge base. It is a continuing process of refining and expanding one’s understanding of words already partially known. As a monitoring tool, the Readingpen facilitates regular checking of assumptions or predictions about the meaning of words. Its use can reduce the tendency to skip past partially known words.

Fixing-up
Readers who are questioning and monitoring as they read will naturally experience times when they recognize their understanding has broken down temporarily. Just as students accept that it is “smart” to use a calculator to tackle difficult computations, they are likely to recognize that it is also “smart” to use a Readingpen to enhance their efforts to make sense of text, to “fix” breakdowns in comprehension. Classroom practice that encourages use of the Readingpen regularly by all students will benefit all the readers in the class. Further, when everyone in the class uses the Readingpen, less able students will no longer feel there is a stigma attached to the need to fix-it and will learn instead to take constructive action in their own behalf.

Determining Importance
It is a common characteristic of content-based non-fiction that the most important ideas or concepts require an understanding of new, or largely new, vocabulary words. Textbooks will frequently introduce these key words in a special section and provide the reader with a brief definition before reading begins.

Successful readers also know that the most important parts of the text can be located by looking for places where these key words occur. The Readingpen can become a handy tool for finding instances of important words, checking their meaning, and seeing the context for these new words. Hence, knowing and using this strategy can direct readers to main ideas and key concepts in a reading assignment.

Closely related to this focus on teaching reading strategies that has evolved from the work of Pearson and others, there is a growing recognition that special attention needs to be given to applying the strategies to reading non-fiction—particularly non-fiction in the content areas of science, social studies, and math.

Henry Olds, at the JASON Foundation for Education, is currently completing a 3-year study, funded through the Star Schools program, of the effectiveness of teaching explicit reading strategies to middle school students who are reading science text materials as part of a JASON Project expedition (Olds, 2005).

John Guthrie, at the University of Maryland, is completing a 5-year research project, funded through IERI that is studying the impact of a science and reading strategy project very similar to Project SLED with 3rd to 5th graders. The project is known as CORI (Concept Oriented Reading Instruction) (Guthrie, Wigfield, & Perencevich, 2003).

David Pearson, at the University of California, Berkeley, is currently leading a study of elementary schools students, in collaboration with the Lawrence Hall of Science, that is researching methods to improve reading comprehension in science text materials as part of the GEMS science kits (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, & Duffy, 1992).

Teachers of content area subjects and teachers of language arts are showing increasing interest in what has come to be called “reading in the content areas.” Their challenge is to help students learn and put into regular practice the key strategies that have been shown to work, such as the ones just described. Teaching these strategies can really help their students become better readers.

The Readingpen is a valuable tool for students and teachers who are working to achieve national, state, and local reading standards. Table 1 details how the Readingpen provides support for the grades 6, 7, and 8 English Language Arts Standards for California Public Schools. Table 2 shows how the Readingpen supports the Florida Sunshine State Standards and grade level expectations for grades 6, 7, and 8. Table 3 shows the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for grades 6, 7, and 8, that the Readingpen facilitates.

Table 1: English Language Arts Standards for California Public Schools and the Readingpen

Table 2: Florida Grade Level Expectations, Language Arts, and the Readingpen

Table 3: TEKS English Language Arts and Reading Vocabulary Standards and the Readingpen

The two scenarios that follow illustrate how content area classroom activities, focused on vocabulary and comprehension of science materials, can be enhanced through the use of the Readingpen.

Scenario #1 Science Vocabulary Day 1

Teacher J. hands out copies of a science article about robotic exploration on the surface of Mars to her class of 6th grade science students. She asks her students to read the article. She then asks each student to follow these steps:

1. Find three words that you think might be the most important words in the article.
2. Pick one of the occurrences of each of the words.
3. Write in your notebooks
a. your understanding of the meaning of the word, and
b. your perception of why it’s important in its particular context.
4. Next, take a Readingpen and check the definition of each of the three words you have chosen.
5. In each of the three cases, compare the meaning you wrote down with the definition found with the Readingpen. In particular, pay attention to any information provided by the Readingpen that changes or adds to the meaning you wrote initially. Even very small differences may be important.
6. Finally, check to see if your understanding of the word now affects your sense of its importance in the article as a whole.

Scenario #2 Science Vocabulary Day 2

Working with the same group, Ms. J. asks the students to take out both the article and their notes from the previous day. She now asks them to pick the one word they think is most important and find all the occurrences of that word in the article. For each occurrence, she asks them to:

1. Use the Readingpen to scan a line of text that includes the word.
2. Look at your text samples.
3. Now answer two questions in your notebook about each occurrence.
a. How is the word being used in this particular context?
b. Why did the author choose the word?

These scenarios show how reading in the content areas can be enhanced through the use of the Readingpen. The use of the Readingpen can benefit learning in the content areas where teaching “reading” is a lesser priority while comprehending text is a very high priority.

Appendix A: Pen Features and Specifications

Built in Text-to-Speech technology provides immediate word-by-word pronunciation of a scanned English word or full line of text.

Pen Scanning Language: English

Recognizes 6-22 point font size text (bold, italic, underlined, inverted).

Voice: The product's built-in Text-to-Speech technology provides immediate word-by-word pronunciation of a scanned English word or full line of text.

Size: ergonomic 6 inches x 1 1/2 x 1, lightweight three ounces.

Built in Text-to-Speech technology pronounces scanned English words aloud.

Optical character recognition at 97% (based on standard font and size average).

Appendix B: References

Black, Susan. (2005, April). Reaching the older reader. American School Board Journal. 192, 4.

Content standards and instructional practices: Grades four through eight. (1999). Reading/Language arts framework for California public schools kindergarten through grade twelve. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education.

Fuentes, P. (1998). Reading comprehension in mathematics. Clearing House, 72, 81-88.

Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & Perencevich, K. (Eds.). (2003). Classroom contexts for engaging reading: An overview. Concept-oriented reading instruction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kamil, Michael. (2003). Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21st century. Alliance for Excellent Education.

Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., & Schumm, J. S. (1998, September). Collaborative strategic reading during social studies in heterogeneous fourth-grade classrooms. Elementary School Journal. 99, 1.

McEwan, E. K. (2002). Teach them all to read: Catching the kids who fall through the cracks. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

National Center for Technology Innovation. (2004). A Review of technology-based approaches for reading instruction: Tools for researchers and vendors. Washington, DC.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Health (NIH Pub. No.00-4754).

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Reports of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH Pub. No. 00-4754).

Olds, H. F. (2005). Personal communication. http://www.jason.org/jason_about/research/research.htm

Pearson, P. D., Roehler, L. R., Dole, J. A., & Duffy, G. G. (1992). Developing expertise in reading comprehension. In J. Samuels., & A. Farstrup, (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association.

RAND Reading Study Group (2001). Reading for understanding: Toward a research and development program in reading comprehension. Prepared for OERI, US Department of Education.

RAND Education and Carnegie Corp. (2004). Achieving state and national literacy goals, a long uphill road. http://www.rand.org/publications/TR/R180.

Vacca, R. T. & Vacca, J. A. L. (2004.) Content area reading: Literacy and learning across the curriculum (8th Edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.