I feel that it depends on the subject and the particular student on whether or not a student is adapt at reading that particular content's literature. If a student does not have a strong background in a particular subject, then they are not going to feel as invested in learning that subject or trying to learn that content. It is our jobs as teachers to provide a strong background and use a variety of methods to teach the students to be able to read our content and understand it. Alverman discusses that not all students read the same, and it is our job to provide multiple ways of reading and not just the textbooks, but at the same time teach students the way to read the textbooks through various comprehension strategies.
My experience through content literacy is that vocabulary plays a big role in comprehending a text. If you know the vocabulary then you have a better chance of comprehending the text. Also relating the text to your own life or current events helps the text become personal and meaningful which in turn makes it more comprehensible.
In my opinion art is all about the vocabulary. If you can get a sense of what the terms used mean, then you can figure out what is being talked about. Understanding art also relies heavily on the visual aspects. Taking a definition or term and applying it with a visual picture is a great way to get a point across. A great example is the word monochromatic and showing a composition with various shades of the same color. Discussing why a particular work of art was created also allows a better understanding when reading about the history of art.
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I completely agree with your comment about students feeling confident in a content area. As secondary teachers, we will have students who will be coming to us from various levels of achievement and accomplishment. Although some of our students will have a strong confidence in our content (hopefully!), there will be some who will need that encouragement. I also agree with you that, as educators, it is our responsisbilty to inspire our students to improve their literacy in our content. One very effective way of increasing this literacy is through application. How can we expect our students to succeed in our content areas if we have not successfully taugh them to read and understand what out content requires? If we can help our students to embrace lteracy then we are truly providing them with a valuable service.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you Allison. As a student I always learned vocabulary better when I had a alternative way to associate it to it's meaning other than just the words that followed it in the dictionary. Students will retain vocabulary a lot better if they can physically see the word. In History we do this by relating stories and experiences to the vocab, in art you can do this by physically showing an example of the vocab. When students reach back into that "filing cabinet" to pull out what the vocab word means, there is a greater likely hood of them recovering it the more that they are exposed to it in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important for us to build confidence in our students' ability to read effectively, as you suggested. My experience in high school was it was expected for us to be able to read and absorb the material. If we couldn't, it was our problem. For struggling readers, this must be a huge leech of confidence. I think that your discipline allows you to try many avenues to build that confidence (through visualization), and if more content areas could borrow these avenues (for me, through kinesthetic and visualization processes), building confident students would help conquer the fear of reading.
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