After reading this article by Barbara Moss, I now truly realize the importance of children reading things that they are interested in. My parents, both being teachers, always encouraged me to read things that captured my interest. However, when I was in elementary school, my teachers stuck stricly to what they had to teach. Meaning, they only taught what we were going to be tested on. This caused me to become frustrated and didn't want to read anything, especially an assignment out of my textbooks. Barbara Moss stresses the importance of content area literacy and how it can be a great part of the classroom. Instruction in the classroom is changing from being focused on just standardized testing performance to actually trying to heighten student interest in and outside of the classroom. It is vital that students are interested and motivated to learn. As teachers, it is our job to help the students along.
One very big change that is ongoing is the use of technology. Now, there are so many different media sources. It is important for students to stay current and up-to-date on all of their resources. Even in the younger grades, technology is being vastly implemented in the classroom. Students should always be given opportunities to use every resource available to them. We have to help children realize that content area literacy goes beyond textbooks and includes other sources of information such as magazines, newspapers, the internet, etc.
Another important aspect involving content area literacy is the fact that many students are not taught how to comprehend what they read. This is one problem that I faced in elementary school and still have issues with now. For example, it is important that teachers model strategies and read-alouds with a variety of texts, expository texts as well as fictional books. Students should be exposed to content area literacy early on. The sooner students learn how and why they are reading about a certain topic, the better off they will be. They should also be allowed and exposed to topics that heighten their interests in order to increase their knowledge of the topic. In the early grades, this can help the children learn new information while they are leaning to read. Strategies can also be implemented to assist students in learning and comprehending the information that they need to know to benefit from it in the future.
There was a quote from the article that stood out to me that states, "Teaching young children about the internal and external features of informational text, for example, can pave the way for helping them increase their understanding of this genre at the upper elementary level." I agree with this statement; because, I believe that when a student is taught and given the foundation, tools, and desire to learn, he or she can excel at anything. One concern or question I have is this, in today's diverse classrooms, ability levels vary and not all students are on the same level. How do you carefully implement content area literacy and strategies and not single out or exclude some students?
It is very interesting that both Kaitlin and I have a lot of the same thoughts and questions. I believe that it is very important to start early with children. I think that a lot of children need to have exposure to things that interest them. They also need the skills to use different types of literature and technology. We want to gain their attention early with literature and continue to enlighten them as they grow and develop into mature literate adults. I believe that the answer to your question will vary from teacher to teacher. I think that you will have to personally get to know the children in your classroom (know their abilities and interests). You then will be able to make a sound decision about what literature and strategies best suit you and your students. The important thing is that you are changing lives for the better and creating a better future for today's children.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the three of us all agree on this. I know that when I was in school, I HATED to read out of our text books and the teachers never made it interesting. It was always the teacher reading and us following along or we would have to take turns reading passages aloud. When I was in school, there were no computers in every room, we didn't have permethian boards, and we were lucky if the teacher used anything but a chalk board to write words on while we looked up the definitions in our books; only to write out the words and definitions over and over. I LOVE childrens literature and I am blessed to have two girls that love to read but I grew up not liking to read because there were never any books or topics covered that I was interested in during our classes. Teachers always made reading a choir and I hope that all of us can make a difference with our future students and engage them in reading to learn with informational texts that they are interested in and enlightening them with their other resources such as, the Internet, articles, magazines, and any other form of literature that may capture their motivation to read to learn.
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