Teaching Reading Strategies: Lessons, Projects, and Literacy

Introduction: The Reading Challenge in Modern Classrooms

According to Rebecca L. Zullo, many of today's pre-service teachers have taken only one course on Reading in the Content Area, most often at some point in the past, and as a result have forgotten much of what they were taught. Additionally, most teachers have not experienced personal difficulties with reading, which has led them to assume that most students are like themselves when it comes to reading — in this instance, in English.

Zullo points out that after teaching more than two thousand students, she has encountered those who "love to read, hate to read, refuse to read" (2004, p. iii), or who have serious difficulties with reading in general, such as not understanding words (limited vocabulary), phrases, and basic grammar and punctuation. In fact, "reading skills don't just magically develop for most students" (2004, p. iii), especially after elementary and high school, unless a student realizes his or her reading and writing potential through self-instruction.

In the past, students were not so overwhelmed by technology. When they wished to be entertained, their options were television, radio, the cinema, records, and of course reading. With the advent of technology beginning in the mid-1980s, however, today's students see little point in reading. They regard it as redundant, unnecessary, and at times boring, due in part to widespread access to the Internet, smartphones, texting, and entertainment provided by mass media, which predominantly uses images rather than words to convey ideas and concepts. As any professional teacher in today's world knows, this situation demands improvement — particularly when it comes to encouraging students and young adults to read books rather than spend their free time in front of a screen, thereby increasing their appreciation for the written word.

As shown in Domain C, "Teaching for Student Learning," in order to change or enhance this situation, the learning goals related to reading and the instructional procedures used by the teacher must be made clear to all students. Content comprehension can also be enhanced through the use of media such as slides or film, but most importantly, students must be encouraged to "extend their thinking" beyond the words on the page. This means showing students how to think creatively, thus providing them with opportunities to express their own thoughts and ideas in the form of stories, poems, and other literary forms.

Reading Lessons: Modeling and Passion in Instruction

Perhaps the best method for teaching students not only to appreciate reading but to clearly understand what they are reading is for the teacher to follow the two suggestions made by Cris Tovani in I Read It, but I Don't Get It. First, the teacher must be "a passionate reader" concerning what he or she is attempting to teach. For instance, if a class is required to read Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the teacher must demonstrate a personal passion for the material and be able to clearly explain certain passages related to the use of allegory, metaphor, simile, and other literary devices. Otherwise, if a teacher does not appreciate the required material, the students will not either (Zullo, 2004, p. 12). In the case of an elementary class, this same principle must be applied, especially since young minds are particularly open to suggestion.

Second, the teacher must "model how good readers read" (Zullo, 2004, p. 12), which can be accomplished by reading the text aloud to the class and vocally emphasizing specific passages and lines of dialogue, much like reading a stage play as one of the primary characters. This approach has the added benefit of increasing students' comprehension of textual content, along with supporting their ability to extend their thinking — for example, considering the symbolism of the white whale in Moby Dick as a metaphor for death or as some overpowering desire on the part of Ahab, the doomed captain of Melville's Pequod.

According to McKenna and Robinson (Teaching Through Text), "Ideas become crystallized in print, visible in a sense, encoded for close inspection" (Zullo, 2004, p. 13), meaning that when a person reads, it forms images in the mind — benefiting not only the reader but also those who hear about these images later, perhaps prompting them to read the text themselves. Overall, this type of reading lesson may inspire students to explore other reading material, thus expanding their reading horizons and their ability to think creatively.