fieldnotes on teaching
Teaching reading comprehension in high school
Literacy CoachingEnglish teachers are often called on to bear the bulk, if not the entirety, of the responsibility for students’ literacy— this despite the fact that they, similar to colleagues from other disciplines, do not typically benefit from extensive preparation in teaching secondary students who are poor readers and writers. Thus the opportunity to work in partnership with literacy coaches who can facilitate schoolwide approaches to advancing literacy skills is extremely valuable to our members.
Data show that 25% of high school students are not able to identify the main idea of a passage; many tend to dwell on details and subordinate ideas (Kamil, 2003). Research reveals that comprehension failure is attributed to the text processing skills of these readers who, among other things, are often unaware of the purpose for reading and thus are less apt to modify their reading rates (Smith, 1967); less able to detect text inconsistencies, the logical structure of text, or how ideas are interconnected (DiVesta, Hayward, & Orlando 1979; Owings, Peterson, Bransford, Morris, & Stein, 1980); and less sensitive to semantic and syntactic cues in text (Irakson & Miller, 1978).
Generally speaking, poor readers are not as flexible as skilled readers in adapting their reading processes to the demands of the task or capitalizing on the structure inherent in texts. Consequently, their ability to write clearly or understand complex subject matter across the content areas is inhibited. Inexperienced adolescent readers need opportunities and instructional support to read many and diverse types of texts in order to gain experience, build fluency, and develop a range as readers. Through extensive reading of a range of texts, supported by strategy lessons and discussions, readers become familiar with written language structures and text features, develop their vocabularies, and read for meaning more efficiently and effectively. Conversations about their reading that focus on the strategies they use and their language knowledge help adolescents build confidence in their reading and become better readers.
Middle and high school English classes are an excellent place to move students to deeper understandings of texts and increase their ability to generate ideas and knowledge for their own uses and to meet scholastic challenges across the curriculum.
The literacy coach can play an essential role in assisting English teachers as they strive to
- bridge between adolescents’ rich literate backgrounds and school literacy
- work on schoolwide teams to teach literacy in each discipline as an essential way of learning in the disciplines
- recognize when students are not making meaning with text and provide appropriate, strategic assistance to read course content effectively
- facilitate student-initiated conversations regarding texts that are authentic and relevant to real life experiences
- create environments that allow students to engage in critical examinations of texts as they dissect, deconstruct, and reconstruct in an effort to engage in meaning making and comprehension processes
Literacy coaches know and assist English language arts teachers in understanding the text structures that students commonly encounter in literary text selections, including
- narrative text structure (e.g., asking students to retell or summarize stories, including important details pertaining to their events, setting, theme, and what the characters say and do; asking students to infer motives of characters and the causal relations among events)
- description or main idea and detail text structure (e.g., asking students to look for the topic, the main points, and supporting details, making notes in a wheel-andspoke diagram)
- comparison and contrast text structure (e.g., looking for signal words; asking students to record differences and similarities between people, places, or events in a Venn diagram)
- chronological/sequential text structure (e.g., looking for signal words; asking students to create a sequence chart of events)
- cause and effect text structure (e.g., looking for signal words; asking students to make predictions and determine relationships between events and the way characters behave)
- argument and evidence text structure (e.g., asking students to list the argument and the evidence to help them make their own judgments)
- combination of patterns (e.g., asking students to find several text structures in a language arts selection)
Literacy coaches assist English language arts teachers in matching instructional methods to the dominant pattern of text structure for any given reading (e.g., developing a timeline for a reading that is organized chronologically or completing a Venn diagram for a reading that is organized in a comparison/contrast pattern).
Literacy coaches know and model methods and strategies to assist English language arts teachers to engage students actively in learning, including asking students to express and defend the point of view of authors as well as develop and express an informed point of view of their own. Some examples of active learning strategies that promote student discussion and dialogue include role plays, think– pair–share, jigsaw, pair problem solving, fishbowl, and round robin strategies.
Literacy coaches know and model strategies for supporting students with the writing process and the characteristics of different types of expository and imaginative writing.
Literacy Strategies Deepen Students’ Thinking in English Language Arts Class
Before becoming a literacy coach in Boston, Chloe had taught English for 10 years at both the college and high school levels. In her work with a young English teacher at a Boston high school, Chloe was able to help the teacher develop ongoing book clubs and use reading strategies that connected one reading to another in order to deepen students’ thinking. The coach counted it as a real success when she observed students discussing the text and offering their ideas— with the teacher at the side, not at the center of the room directing the conversation. Another English teacher sought suggestions for ways to help students understand that there can be more than one interpretation of a text as long as it can be substantiated.
Chloe suggested working with the Roethke poem “My Papa’s Waltz” because it was short and accessible to students, and could be handled in one day. She and the teacher talked over how the poem could be interpreted as a nostalgic reverie about childhood or a lens on childhood abuse. Using a protocol adapted from Sheridan Blau’s The Literature Workshop, the coach helped to design an activity that asked students to:
- Underline words or lines they found confusing, then write out questions.
- Choose the most important line in the poem and write a paragraph about why.
- Get together in groups of four to share problems they had with specific words and lines and work to clear them up.
- Then share their paragraphs about the most important line they picked and discuss the similarities and differences in their perspectives.
Source:
Adapted from Annenberg Institute for School Reform. (2005). Coaches in the high school classroom: Studies in implementing high school reform (Prepared for Carnegie Corporation of New York). Providence, RI: Author.
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