Developing Academic Literacy

The way students feel about reading and how often they read can have a huge impact on test scores.  What is important in creating academic literacy is teaching different types of mental strategies, allowing diverse readers to learn from one another, and it is important that all readers improve their reading skills not only the struggling readers. (pp 47-48)  In order to develop academic literacy there are three things that are important to implement in a classroom according to Schoenbach (1999), short text selections that would (1) portray different views of the role of reading in people's lives; (2) give students practice with a variety of disciplinary readings in, for example, science, history, and literature; and (3) be appropriately challenging, that is, not so  difficult that students could not read them at all but difficult enough so that students would be motivated to use some of the new strategies they were learning" (p. 48). 

According to Schoenbach (1999), It is important to help the students "become engaged, fluent, and competent readers of the various types of texts necessary for their success across disciplines in high school, in postsecondary education, in employment, and in everyday life" (p. 48).  Some important questions, as discussed by Schoenbach (1999),  the students should learn to ask themselves are: What are my characteristics as a reader?, What strategies do I use as I read?, What roles does reading serve in people's personal and public lives?, What roles will reading play in my future education and career goals?, What goals do I want to set and work toward to help myself develop as a reader?

Four units that Schoenbach and other teachers put together to teach academic literacy included Reading and Society, Reading Media, Reading History, and Reading Science and Technology.  In the Reading and Society unit students learned the importance of reading and how to choose books, which helped them to enjoy reading and to become more fluent through an AR program.  In the second unit Reading Media students learned about the different types of text available and for whom they were written,  In the third unit  reading history students learned to read textbooks and primary source documents through their own personal experiences.  The final unit reading Science and Technology students they also learn to read textbooks, use primary sources, as well as learn to understand explanations of natural disasters (Schoenbach, 1999, pp 48-52)

According to Schoenbach (1999), "Key instructional strategies employed in all four of the units are silent sustained reading, reciprocal teaching (RT) and its components (questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting), and explicit instruction in self-monitoring and cognitive strategies that facilitate reading a variety of texts" (p. 52).  I will talk about RT as well as the other strategies in further detail in my next blog. 

Teaching academic literacy is important because not only are students learning to read certain types of texts they are simultaneously reading to learn.  These strategies are extremely important to students in order to help them to succeed in college or other areas of their life.  If they do not properly learn how to read they will not be easily reading to learn if at all.