ED469930 2002-12-00 Adolescent

Literacy and Content Area Reading.

ERIC Digest.

ERIC Development Team

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Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest............. 1

HISTORICAL CONTEXT...................................................... 2

RECONCEPTUALIZING ADOLESCENT LITERACY AND CONTENT

READING................................................................... 3

A NEW MODEL FOR CLASSROOM PRACTICE AND TEACHER

EDUCATION............................................................... 4

FOR MORE INFORMATION:................................................. 5

REFERENCES.................................................................. 5

ERIC Identifier: ED469930

Publication Date: 2002-12-00

Author: Grady, Karen

Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading English and Communication Bloomington IN.,

Family Learning Association Bloomington IN.

Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading.

ERIC Digest.

THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

INFORMATION CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT

ED469930 2002-12-00 Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest. Page 1 of 8
ACCESS ERIC 1-800-LET-ERIC

In 1999 the International Reading Association issued a position statement on

adolescent literacy which called for a renewed interest in and dedication to the rights

and needs of adolescent readers:

"Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than

at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform

their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They

will need literacy to cope with the flood of information they will find everywhere they

turn. They will need literacy to feed their imaginations so they can create the world of

the future. In a complex and sometimes even dangerous world, their ability to read will

be crucial. Continual instruction beyond the early grades is needed" (Moore, Bean,

Birdyshaw, & Rycik, 1999, p. 99).

This Digest provides a brief summary of the development of content area reading; it

discusses a reconceptualization of adolescent literacy and content learning; and it offers

an example of a new model for both secondary classroom practice and teacher

education.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

For several decades educators have been concerned about literacy development

beyond the early grades. As early as the 1930's there was an emphasis on the different

reading demands of various subjects and on improving the reading abilities of high

school students (Moore, Readence, & Rickelman, 1986). The term "content reading"

became prominent in the 1970's with the publication of Herber's (1970) book, Teaching

Reading in the Content Areas where Herber distinguished between literacy

development as reading instruction and literacy development to support subject matter

learning (Alvermann & Phelps, 1994; Ruddell, 2001).

Much of the work in this area was based on developments in cognitive psychology in

the 1970's and 1980's, which provided insight into the relationship between a reader's

background knowledge (schema) of a topic and the reader's ability to make sense of a

text addressing that topic. The term "schema" refers to a set of cognitive structures of

interrelated ideas and concepts built from a person's experience (see the 1989 ERIC

Digest "Schema Activation, Construction, and Application"). According to some views of

schema theory, a reader's existing knowledge of the subject matter is the single most

influential factor in what he or she will learn from reading a text about that subject matter

(Anderson, 1984; Steffensen, Joag-Dev, & Anderson, 1979). Thus, theorizing and

research in cognitive psychology led to the development of many instructional strategies

that secondary teachers could use to increase students' comprehension of course

materials. For example, the use of a pre-reading strategy such as an anticipation guide

can serve to activate students' prior knowledge to improve comprehension. It can also

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enable students to confront misconceptions about the topic at hand, or to arrive at new

understandings by revising or constructing new schema (Dufflemeyer, 1994). Numerous

content area vocabulary development strategies focus on activating students' existing

word/concept knowledge so that they may build on the schemata they have, or develop

new schemata for new concepts (Alvermann & Phelps, 1994; Lenski, Wham, M. A. &

Johns, 1999; Ruddell, 2001).

While the focus on the cognitive dimension of reading has helped some students

become more proficient readers of content area texts (Ruddell, 2001), some

assessment data indicates the need to reconsider adolescent literacy and content area

learning. Greenleaf, Schoenbach, Cziko, and Mueller (2001) note that there are still

persistent gaps in student achievement between students who are members of the

dominant culture and those who are not. They also draw on data from the 1998 National

Assessment of Educational Progress Reading Report Card. It indicates that although

the percentages of eighth and twelfth graders scoring above the proficient level have

increased (33% and 40% respectively), these percentages still suggest that high levels

of literacy are not being attained by most secondary students. Some research indicates

that an emphasis on reading solely as a cognitive process has not adequately

addressed the needs of adolescent readers as they face learning from texts in the

various subject areas at the secondary level.

RECONCEPTUALIZING ADOLESCENT

LITERACY AND CONTENT READING

A number of reading researchers and theorists believe the reading process to be much

more complex, including not only the cognitive dimension addressed by schema theory

and many existing reading strategies, but including a social dimension as well (e.g.,

Bloome, 1986; Goodman, 1996; Greenleaf, et al., 2001; Harste, 1994). The extent to

which readers are able to construct meaning with texts is also based on the personal,

interpersonal, and institutional contexts in which reading events occur. The work of

sociolinguists, cultural anthropologists, and critical theorists has shown that it is not

possible to separate classroom practices such as strategies for activating background

knowledge from the larger social and cultural contexts in which the practices are

enacted (e.g., Heath, 1983; Gee, 1996).

Drawing from some recent studies, Moje, Young, Readence, & Moore (2000) call for a

conception of adolescent literacy that includes adolescents' literacy practices beyond

the secondary classroom, their expanded notion of text (i.e., the Internet, television, and

magazines), and the relationship between literacy and the development of identity. But

they also caution that the issues of teaching and learning in the context of secondary

school content areas are still critical areas for research. For example, what constitutes

best practices depends on many factors: how students perceive themselves as readers,

what their interests are at the time, the interactions of teacher and student, of student

and student, the classroom environment in which the strategy is being used, and how

ERIC Resource Center www.eric.ed.gov

ED469930 2002-12-00 Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest. Page 3 of 8
institutional structures shape daily events that occur in classrooms and schools. This

fertile ground of literacy as a complex process and research about adolescent literacy

and learning in secondary classrooms is providing a means for reinventing ways to

develop students' academic literacies (Brynildssen, 2001).

A NEW MODEL FOR CLASSROOM PRACTICE

AND TEACHER EDUCATION

One model developed from the reconceptualization of content reading is Reading

Apprenticeship (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, & Hurwitz, 1999). This instructional

framework is based on the dual notions of literacy as a complex cognitive and social

process and of teaching as cognitive apprenticeship. In order for adolescents to move

from being novices to experts in specific content area practices, an expert practitioner

(the subject matter teacher) guides, models, makes explicit, and supports the novice in

his or her development. Indeed, because ways of thinking, speaking, reading, and

writing vary from discipline to discipline, some believe the most appropriate place for

students to learn these discipline-specific discourse practices is from teachers who are

already experts in these fields.

Briefly summarized, Reading Apprenticeship involves teachers and their students as

partners in a collaborative inquiry into reading and reading processes as they engage in

subject-area texts. This instructional framework explicitly draws on students' strengths

and abilities to provide crucial resources for the inquiry partnership... how we read and

why we read in the ways we do become part of the curriculum, accompanying what we

read in subject-matter classes [emphasis in original] (Greenleaf, Schoenbach, Cziko, &

Mueller, 2001, p. 89).

The framework consists of four integrated dimensions of classroom life that teachers

and students explore together: social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building. The

social dimension centers on building a community of readers who use literacy to make

connections between their interests, each other, and the larger social world they are

engaged in learning about. The personal dimension of Reading Apprenticeship

develops students' awareness of themselves as readers, of their purposes in reading,

and of their goals for improvement. Adolescents' resources and the multiple literacies

that are part of their daily lives are part of the teaching and learning that occurs. The

cognitive dimension is the part of the framework that incorporates instruction in and the

use of comprehension strategies, providing tools for monitoring comprehension, for

problem-solving to assist comprehension, and for developing flexibility in reading. The

knowledge-building dimension focuses on such areas as developing content knowledge

(building schemata), knowledge of the discipline-specific vocabulary, and text and

language structures.

The four dimensions of classroom life are made visible to students through the

metacognitive conversations that students and teachers engage in about the texts they

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are reading. Metacognitive conversations occur through class discussion, small group

work, writing, and individual reflection. The model provides a framework and means for

teachers to explicitly show students how to reflect on their own and each other's ways of

using language and how to connect their knowledge and experiences to academic

literacy practices. In Reading Apprenticeship classrooms, students work toward

advanced levels of literacy by developing skills and strategies, as well as the necessary

dispositions required for the challenge of achieving academic literacy. Students are able

to move from novice to proficient performance in content area literacies by being

engaged in complex academic literacy tasks with support from the teacher and peers

and with the teacher making explicit the knowledge and problem-solving skills teachers

call upon as readers in their disciplines.

Greenleaf, Schoenbach, Cziko, and Mueller (2001) report on the implementation of this

framework in a course in academic literacy offered to ninth graders in one of the poorest

neighborhoods in San Francisco for the 1996-1997 school year. Assessments of

student reading development on multiple measures were not only statistically

significant, but impressive overall, as students made gains of two years in reading

proficiency in seven months of instruction. Follow-up studies indicated that students

maintained their reading development and continued their growth as readers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement

http://cela.albany.edu/

WestEd-The Strategic Literacy Initiative

http://www.wested.org/stratlit/

National Institute for Literacy: Adolescent Literacy

http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/adolescent/

REFERENCES

Alvarez, Marino C. & Risko, Victoria J. (1989). Schema Activation, Construction, and

Application. Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and

ERIC Resource Center www.eric.ed.gov

ED469930 2002-12-00 Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest. Page 5 of 8
Communication. [ED 312 611]

Alvermann, D. & Phelps, S. (1998). Content reading and literacy. Boston: Allyn &

Bacon.

Anderson, R. C. (1984). Role of the reader's schema in comprehension, learning, and

memory. In R. C. Anderson, J. Osborn, & R. J. Tierney (Eds.), Learning to read in

American schools: Basal readers and texts (pp. 243-257). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bloome, D. (1986). Reading as a social process in a middle school classroom. In D.

Bloome (Ed.), Literacy and schooling (pp. 123-149). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. [ED 307 582]

Brynildssen, S. (2001). Highlights of reading research in the labs and centers of the

U.S. Department of Education. Bloomington, IN: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading,

English, and Communication. [ED 459 425]

Dufflemeyer, F. (1994). Effective anticipation guide statements for learning from

expository prose. Journal of Reading, 37(6), 452-457. [EJ 481 057]

Gee, J. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (2nd ed.).

London: Falmer Press.

Goodman, K. (1996) On reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. [ED 394 134]

Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C., & Mueller, F. (2001). Apprenticing adolescent

readers to academic literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 71 (1), pp. 79-129. [EJ 624

237]

Harste, J. (1994). Literacy about curriculum conversations about knowledge, inquiry,

and morality. In R. Ruddell, M. Ruddell, & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and

processes of reading (4th ed., pp. 1220-1242). Newark, DE: International Reading

Association. [ED 379 626]

Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Herber, H. L. (1970). Teaching reading in the content areas. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Lenski, S., Wham, M.A., & Johns, J. (1999). Reading & learning strategies for middle &

high school students. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. [ED 442 083]

Moje, E., Young, J. P., Readence, J., & Moore, D. (2000). Reinventing adolescent

literacy for new times: Perennial and millennial issues. Journal of Adolescent & Adult

Literacy, 43 (5), 400-410. [EJ 598 956]

Moore, D. W., Bean T. W., Birdyshaw, D., & Rycik, J. A. (1999). "Adolescent literacy: A

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position statement." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43, 97-112. [EJ 592 830]

Moore, D. W., Readence, J. E., & Rickelman, R. J. (1983). An historical exploration of

content reading instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 18(4), 419-438. [EJ 285 210]

Ruddell, M. (2001). Teaching content reading and writing (3rd ed.). New York: John

Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ED 401 526]

Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf, C., Cziko, C., & Hurwitz, L. (1999). Reading for

understanding: A guide to improving reading in middle and high school classrooms. San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Steffensen, M. S., Joag-Dev, C., & Anderson, R. C. (1979). A cross-cultural perspective

on reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 15(1), 10-29. [EJ 210 791]

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Digest #176 is EDO-CS-02-07, published December 2002 by the ERIC Clearinghouse

on Reading, English and Communication, 2805 E 10th St. #140, Bloomington, IN

47408-2698, Tel. (800) 759-4723. Full text at: http://eric.indiana.edu. ERIC Digests are

in the public domain and may be freely reproduced.

This project is funded at least in part with Federal funds from the US Dept. of Education

(contract #ED-99-CO-0028). The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect

the views or policies of the US Dept. of Education nor does mention of trade names,

commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the US Government.

Title: Adolescent Literacy and Content Area Reading. ERIC Digest.

Note: Digest number 176.

Document Type: Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs)

(071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073);

Available From: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication, 2805

E. 10th St., #140, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698. Web site: http://eric.indiana.edu. Family

Learning Association, 3925 Hagan St., #101, Bloomington, IN 47401. Tel:

800-759-4723 (Toll Free); Web site: http://www.kidscanlearn.com.

Descriptors: Adolescents, Content Area Reading, Literacy, Models, Reading

Processes, Secondary Education, Social Influences, Teacher Student Relationship,

Teaching Methods

Identifiers: ERIC Digests

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