¶ … Instructional Strategies
Question answer strategy (QAR) teaches students how and when to use their texts when answering comprehension questions. Collaboration, specifically co-teaching, has been shown to be effective with special education teachers and content-area teachers in the general education classroom. The QAR strategy can enhance comprehension across different content areas.
Fenty, N.S., McDuffie-Landrum, K., and Fisher, G. (2012). Using collaboration, co- teaching, and question answer relationships to enhance content area literacy. Teaching Exceptional Children 44(6), pp. 28-37.
QAR is taught through five elements of effective instruction: anticipatory set, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and closure (Duke & Pearson, 2002, and Fisher & Frey, 2007, cited in Fenty et al., 2012).
Although word walls have been used traditionally in primary classrooms, the authors report effective use in the middle school. Over the course of year, a word wall was built by teachers and students in eighth that included vocabulary across content areas.
Yates, P.H., Cuthrell, K., Rose, M. (2011). Out of the room and into the hall: Making content word walls work. Clearing House 84(1), pp. 31-36.
The multi-content word wall could be built for any grade level, or multiple grade levels. Team members should meet initially to agree on procedures and guidelines for implementing and maintaining the wall.
Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a multi-strategy approach for teaching strategies for reading comprehension. CSR can also be effective when used with adolescent English language learners (ELLs) with learning disabilities. ELLs typically struggle when moving from the primary classroom, where the focus shifts from "learning to read" to "reading to learn;" text becomes increasingly complex.
Klingner, J.K., Boardman, A.G., Eppolito, A.M., Schonewise, E.A. (2012). Supporting adolescent English language learners' reading...
Learning Disabilities -- A Contemporary Journal 10(1), pp. 35-64.
The authors recommend three broad strategies that can be implemented in any school, at any grade level: create supportive, culturally responsive learning environments; support oral language development and vocabulary acquisition; and teach reading comprehension strategies (Klingner et al., 2012, p. 59).
Response to Intervention (RTI) is a tiered approach to instruction designed to provide high-quality instruction for all and to target struggling learners. Content literacy strategies, when successfully implemented at the elementary school level, can help children develop literacy and learning skills necessary to get information and understand concepts, ideally eliminating the need for Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports for the majority of students.
Brozo, W.G. (2010). The role of content literacy in an effective RTI program. Reading Teacher 64(2), pp. 147-150.
The author advocates establishment of the language arts curriculum on the premise of reading to learn. By increasing print encounters and experiences with informational text, teachers can show students that content learning and content literacy learning are "inseparable" (Bronzo, 2010, p. 148).
"All teachers are teachers of reading," (Greenwood, 2010, p. 223). Content area expertise is only part of the teacher's role. Several strategies have been proven effective when teaching reading to middle-level students. The author outlines principles for academic vocabulary instruction.
Greenwood, S.C. (2010). Content area readers: Helping middle-level students become word aware (and enjoy it!). Clearing House 83(6), pp. 223-229.
Teachers can provide direct instruction in one or more models of reading and vocabulary strategies: PAVE (predict, associate, verify, evaluate); the Frayer model (using attributes/non-attributes); concept circles; semantic mapping; and analogy games.
Constructivist learning theory…
