Content Area Reading Strategy Knowledge Transfer From Preservice To First-year Teaching

The 2007 Nation's Report Card revealed that 43% of the eighth graders who took the

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test scored at the basic level. This means that when given grade-level text, students scoring at the basic level have "a literal understanding of what they read and are able to make some interpretations" (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007, p. 38). In 2007, 26% of eighth graders scored below basic, suggesting that reading comprehension is a serious problem for many U.S. adolescents. One approach to improve the literacy of our MBT Shoes middle and high school students has been to increase the course work required of preservice teachers to include content area literacy. The course commonly includes the goal of helping preservice candidates understand that teaching reading is the responsibility of all teachers, not just those that teach English. While these courses include conceptual ideas, such as reading is rooted in a sociocultural context, the bulk of the class is often devoted to teaching preservice teachers practical applications of research-based reading and writing strategies for integration into their content area lessons.

I teach such a course for secondary content area preservice teachers. In addition to strategy instruction, I also focus on the connections between social justice and literacy and encourage my students to consider how literacy empowers individuals. Generally, my students do well in the course. They are required to model a research-based strategy to their peers; complete an extensive case study of the reading attitudes, habits, and abilities of a middle or high school student; and write lesson plans and implement several of the strategies they learn in class in their student teaching placements.

Like any thoughtful teacher, I have concerns about the transferability of what my student teachers learn in my classroom to their own middle and high school classes once they leave the credential program. This article is an account of a study in which I followed four preservice teachers into their first year of teaching to trace the development of their thinking about literacy in relation to their Clearance MBT Shoes content area teaching. I also tracked what and how much reading they required of their students and the decision making and application of reading strategies associated with the assigned reading.

The guiding questions for the study were

1. What and how much do the teachers ask their students to read?

2. What reading strategies do teachers use, and why?

3. What are the barriers to using reading strategies in content area classrooms?

I provide some background and describe the participants, the context, and the methodology for the study. After the analysis, I present the findings with recommendations for educators.

by: Brayden Anderson

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