Curriculum Constructs and Assessment: Reading Methods for Secondary Settings
This course focuses on the most current research, theory, and methods of teaching reading at the secondary level. Various instructional and assessment techniques are modeled. A practical application project, based on work with a student in a 7th-12th-grade setting, is incorporated into the course requirements.
Topics and Objectives
Content Area Literacy
- Define literacy.
- Examine trends in literacy.
- Generate a rationale for content area literacy.
Vocabulary
- Analyze methods for teaching content area vocabulary.
Pre-Reading Strategies
- Assess the importance of prior knowledge in the reading process.
- Use pre-reading strategies such as anticipation guides, graphic organizers, Pre-P, and K-W-L charts.
National and State Standards
- Examine national and state language arts standards.
- Examine national and state content area standards.
Guided Reading Strategies
- Use guided reading strategies such as Re-Quest, K-W-L charts, Question-Answer Relationships (QAR), note-taking, reciprocal teaching, and SQ3R.
Post-Reading and Study Strategies
- Use post-reading and study strategies such as semantic mapping, graphic organizers, Venn diagrams, outlining, and summaries.
Assessment
- Examine informal assessment procedures, such as the Content Reading Inventory and the Cloze procedure.
- Examine formal assessment procedures, such as standardized reading tests.
Textbook Difficulty
- Determine the readability of a textbook using the Fry Graph.
Considerations for Textbook Choice
- Analyze the organization and content of a textbook to determine its classroom suitability.
Writing in the Content Areas
- Examine the writing process.
- Use holistic and analytic trait scoring.
Supplementary Resources in the Content Areas
- Evaluate supplementary resources appropriate to chosen content, such as the Internet, trade books, periodicals, and software and multimedia.
