Instructional Strategies for Content Area Literacy

Question Answer Relationships and Co-Teaching

The Question Answer Relationship (QAR) strategy teaches students how and when to use their texts when answering comprehension questions. Collaboration, specifically co-teaching, has been shown to be effective when pairing special education teachers with 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 traditionally been used in primary classrooms, research reports their effective use at the middle school level as well. Over the course of a year, a word wall was built collaboratively by teachers and students in eighth grade that included vocabulary across content areas.

Content Word Walls Across Subject Areas

Yates, P.H., Cuthrell, K., and Rose, M. (2011). Out of the room and into the hall: Making content word walls work. Clearing House, 84(1), pp. 31–36.

A multi-content word wall can be built for any grade level, or for multiple grade levels simultaneously. Team members should meet initially to agree on procedures and guidelines for implementing and maintaining the wall.

Collaborative Strategic Reading for English Language Learners

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a multi-strategy approach for teaching reading comprehension. CSR can also be effective when used with adolescent English language learners (ELLs) who have learning disabilities. ELLs typically struggle as they move from the primary classroom, where the focus shifts from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," and where texts become increasingly complex.

Klingner, J.K., Boardman, A.G., Eppolito, A.M., and Schonewise, E.A. (2012). Supporting adolescent English language learners' reading in the content areas. 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 explicitly (Klingner et al., 2012, p. 59).

Response to Intervention and Content Literacy

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a tiered approach to instruction designed to provide high-quality instruction for all students while targeting those who are struggling. Content literacy strategies, when successfully implemented at the elementary school level, can help children develop the literacy and learning skills necessary to access and understand content, 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 building 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" (Brozo, 2010, p. 148).